Narrative Performances of Mothering in South Asian Diasporic Fiction

"Examining a range of South Asian Anglophone diasporic fiction and poetry, this monograph opens a new dialogue between diaspora studies and gender studies. It shows how discourses of diaspora benefit from re-examining their own critical relation to concepts of the maternal and the motherland. Rather than considering maternity as a fixed or naturally given category, it challenges essentialist conceptions and explores mothering as a performative practice which actively produces discursive meaning. This innovative approach also involves an investigation of central metaphors in nationalist and diasporic rhetorics, bringing critical attention to the strategies they employ and the unique aesthetic forms they produce"-- Provided by publisher Examining a range of South Asian Anglophone diasporic fiction and poetry, this book opens a new dialogue between diaspora studies and gender studies, arguing that discourses of diaspora benefit from re-examining their own critical relation to concepts of the maternal and the motherland. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Series Page 3 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Dedication 6 Table of Contents 8 List of figures 10 Acknowledgements 12 Abbreviations 14 1 Introduction: More than one mother 16 1.1 Gender and nation 22 1.2 Theories of the maternal 26 1.3 Theories of diaspora 38 1.4 Outline of chapters 43 2 Historical performances: Reading Mother India in nationalist discourse and Kipling 48 2.1 Bharat Mata 48 2.2 Kipling's imperial Mother India 71 3 Citational performances: "Talking major mother country" in Rushdie's Midnight's Children 89 3.1 Diasporic maternal practices 89 3.2 Victorian Mothers 90 3.3 The performance of mothering 97 3.4 "De-condensing" Mother India 102 3.5 Diasporic bastards 109 4 Exile performances: Pakistani mother–daughter relationships in Bapsi Sidhwa's Cracking India and Sara Suleri's Meatless Days 118 4.1 Sidhwa's matricide 119 4.2 Suleri's mother elegy 136 5 Maternal performances: Mother tongues in Ravinder Randhawa's A Wicked Old Woman and Monica Ali's Brick Lane 155 5.1 Performing the mother tongue 155 5.2 A wicked old mother 162 5.3 Herethics and diasporic mothering 167 5.4 Diasporic seas 171 5.5 Ali's coming-of-agency 178 6 Outlook and conclusion: Diasporic maternal aesthetics 190 6.1 Indo-Caribbean labours 190 6.2 Retrospects and prospects 201 Works cited 208 Index 226 Diaspora,Mothering,Harlots,Surrogacy,Historical Continuity,Maternal,Nature,Femininity