Transnational feminism and literature : a study of women’s realities in The Lowland, Burnt Shadows and The Good Muslim

Abstract

Feminists of today believe in working collaboratively to form transnational alliances and to inspect a wide range of issues that intersect with the lived experiences of the woman. The contemporary paradigm of transnational feminism locates the woman‘s positioning from a global perspective. It is to understand how modern day context of imperialism and colonialism affect the realities of women living in different places. In order to contest mainstream representations of the non-Western woman in Western discourses, the transnational feminist campaigns to recognize inequalities across different groups of women worldwide. It is essential to realize that the movement, as are the women‘s realities, is not uniform. The presentation of female experiences in fictional works by Jhumpa Lahiri, Kamila Shamsie and Tahmima Anam explore diverse and unavoidable themes of migration, diapora, national and religious interventions, and patriarchal oppression etc. – elements that are fundamental in shaping the women‘s lives. This dissertation adopts the transnational lens in examining novels The Lowland, Burnt Shadows and The Good Muslim to investigate the South Asian moments of differences in women‘s unique experiences. It is through these experiences do we anticipate a subversion of the solidarity assumed by dominant discourses.