Gender and Criminality in Bangla Crime Narratives: Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (Palgrave Advances in Criminology and Criminal Justice in Asia)

This book examines diverse literary writings in Bangla related to crime in late nineteenth and early twentieth century colonial Bengal, with a timely focus on gender. It analyses crime-centred fiction and non-fiction in the region to see how actual or imagined crimes related to women were shaped and fashioned into images and narratives for contemporary genteel readers. The writings have been examined within a social-historical context where gender was a fiercely contested terrain for publicly fought debates on law, sexual relations, reform, and identity as moulded by culture, class, and caste. Both canonized literary writings (like those of Bankim Chatterji) as well as non-canonical, popular writings (of writers who have not received sufficient critical attention) are scrutinised in order to examine how criminal offences featuring women (as both victims and offenders) have been narrated in early manifestations of the genre of crime writing in Bangla. An empowered and thought-provoking study, this book will be of special interest to scholars of criminology and social justice, literature, and gender. Front Matter....Pages i-xi Introduction....Pages 1-49 Bleak Houses: Domestic Dystopias and Crimes in Bankim’s Bishbrikhha and Krishnakanta’s Will ....Pages 51-96 Wanton Wives and Widows: Offending Female Bodies in the Daroga Accounts of Priyanath Mukhopadhyay....Pages 97-141 Deviant by Design: Female Criminals in the Daroga Accounts of Priyanath Mukhopadhyay....Pages 143-184 Detection and Desire: Male Goyendas and Their Female Bête-Noires in the Early Bangla Detective Novels....Pages 185-225 Back Matter....Pages 227-247