Gendered Violence in the English-Language Fiction by Authors of South-Asian Origin
Gendered Violence in the English-Language Fiction by Authors of South-Asian Origin

Summary/Abstract: This article aims to analyse gendered instances of violence, as they are described in a number of novels written in English by authors of South-Asian origin, among which Shame, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Shalimar the Clown, Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee by Meera Syal, Brick Lane by Monica Ali, or The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. Institutional violence against women includes rape, sutee/sati (the ritual of self-immolation of Hindu women at the death of their husbands), wearing the Islamic symbol of burqa, or keeping women in purdah (Muslim women’s confinement to the private sphere). In the case of men, the best known is male circumcision for Muslims or the male sterilisation campaign in the Emergency period in India. The trans-gendered body is also explored, with an emphasis on the hijras in India, men who undergo a castration ceremony in order to become guardians of women or artists.

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