1st Edition

Bangladeshi Novels in English Cultural Contact and Migrant Subjectivity

By Umme Salma Copyright 2025
252 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

252 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

252 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

Bangladeshi Novels in English: Cultural Contact and Migrant Subjectivity is the first comprehensive study of Bangladeshi migration and diasporas through eight seminal Bangladeshi novels in English from the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries: Adib Khan’s Seasonal Adjustments and Spiral Road , Farhana H. Rahman’s The Eye of the Heart , Monica Ali’s Brick Lane , Manzu Islam’s Burrow ,... Read more

Introduction: Migration, Myths, and Literature

Part I: Women’s Perspectives

  1. Women as Bangles, Bangles as Women: Traditions, Traps, and Transformations in Nashid Kamal’s The Glass Bangles
  2. Housewifery, Triple Entrapments, and Slow Transformation in Monica Ali’s Brick Lane
  3. A Wasp, a Whale, and a Ship: Women, Nation, and Nomadism in Tahmima Anam’s The Bones of Grace
  4. “I Am So Afraid and It Hurts So Much”: Transient Migration, Women, Romance, and Politics in Farhana H. Rahman’s The Eye of the Heart

Part II: Men’s Perspectives

  1. Migration, Race, and Traumatic Transculturation in Burrow by Manzu Islam
  2. “Bridges are Fragile things”: Bonds, Bridges, and Eerie Evolution in Zia Haider Rahman’s In the Light of What We Know
  3. Stories of Emotional Bedouins in Adib Khan’s Seasonal Adjustments and Spiral Road

 

Part III: Children’s Perspectives

 

  1. When Born Across: Cultural Sustainability, Intergenerational Collisions and Child Agency in Adib Khan’s Seasonal Adjustments and Monica Ali’s Brick Lane

 

Conclusion: Bangladeshi Novels in English: Cultural Contact and Migrant Subjectivity

Index

Biography

Umme Salma earned a PhD in Postcolonial and Other Literatures in English (focusing on Bangladeshi anglophone literature) from the School of Languages and Cultures, the University of Queensland, Australia. She was a Graduate Digital Research Fellow at the University of Queensland and an Honorary Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia. She has published research articles and book reviews in South Asian Review, Gitanjali and Beyond, Asiatic and Transnational Literature. Salma is also a bilingual poet, writing and publishing in Bangla and English. As an early career researcher, Salma teaches literature and writing at the University of Queensland, Australia, and has dedicated her time to research and publication. She has taught English language and literature in International Islamic University Chittagong, Bangladesh.

A unique book explores migrant entrapment desires to breaking free.

--Dr Abu Dayen, Professor at Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh

 

This book presents a critical appreciation, categorizes the recurrent themes of eight new English novels by seven Bangladeshi authors, and develops new theoretical tools to evaluate such literature. It connects the critical and creative worlds with an astute scholarship.

--Dr. Ahmed Shamim, Assistant Professor of Instruction, Asian Studies, The University of Texas at Austin.