Intimate Class Acts: Friendship and Desire in Indian and Pakistani Women's Fiction.

Mirza, M.

Abstract

Intimate Class Acts is an interdisciplinary study of ten anglophone novels by women writers from India and Pakistan that grapple with the fascinating theme of emotional and physical intimacy between the haves and the have-nots in the Indian subcontinent. The novels examined include well-known texts, notably Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and Bapsi Sidhwa’s Ice-Candy-Man, as well as works that have so far drawn limited critical attention, such as Moni Mohsin’s The End of Innocence and Brinda Charry’s The Hottest Day of the Year. The intimate relationships explored in the book include friendship between women during childhood and in the adult world, as well as heterosexual romance and desire. The book is a significant contribution to the still-nascent literary criticism of anglophone South Asian literature through the lens of class. It brings to the fore how material inequality intersects with other forms of social stratification, notably, gender and caste, to determine the complexion and longevity of intimate human relationships. It illustrates not only the tenuousness of cross-class intimacy, as depicted in works of fiction, but also its subversive possibilities. Moreover, the study demonstrates that while the English-language novel of the region can be ‘elitist’ and politically conservative, it can also produce nuanced narratives centred on the socio-economic subaltern’s voice, agency, and sensibility.

Citation

Mirza, M. (2016). Intimate Class Acts: Friendship and Desire in Indian and Pakistani Women's Fiction. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof%3Aoso/9780199466740.001.0001

• Book Type: Authored Book
• Online Publication Date: Sep 1, 2016
• Publication Date: 2016-09
• Deposit Date: Oct 24, 2018
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof%3Aoso/9780199466740.001.0001
• Publisher URL: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/intimate-class-acts-9780199466740