Making the difference : the differing presentations and representations of South Asia in the contemporary fiction of home and diasporic South Asian women writers

Abstract

Contemporary South Asian women writers write from almost anywhere in the world; from all parts of Asia, from Africa, Australia, Canada, Europe, and USA. Many of these women writers choose to focus their writings on their experiences of life as South Asian women. In this article, the diasporic literature I will be working with is by South Asian women writers from Canada, UK, and USA, and I therefore may occasionally group these countries under the term, ‘the West’, for ease of reference. For the same purpose, writers writing from within South Asia have been designated the term ‘home writers’. (It must be noted that home and diasporic South Asian women writers are inclined to define themselves as such, based on race, culture, and family background, rather than on nationality and political status.)