1st Edition
Indira Goswami Margins and Beyond
This book engages with the life and works of Indira Goswami, the first Assamese woman writer to win the highest national literary award, the Jnanpith Award, in 2001. From sociological treatises to a springboard of a socio-political milieu, Goswami’s texts are intersections of the local and the global, the popular and the canonical. The writer’s penchant for transcending boundaries gives a new contour and shape to the social and cultural domains in her texts. That every character is a representative of the society, that the context comes alive in every evocation of class struggle, power play, caste discrimination and gendered narratives add an interesting semantic load to her texts. While tracing the trajectories discussed above, this book foregrounds Goswami’s act of going beyond the margins of varied kinds, both abstract and concrete, in search of egalitarian and democratic spaces of life.
The book looks at Indira Goswami’s works with a special emphasis on the author situated within the Assamese literary canon. It not only discusses the themes and issues within her writing, but also focuses on the distinct language and style she uses. The volume includes non-fictional prose, excerpts from her short stories and novels, viewpoints of critics, letters and entries from diaries, as well as interviews with Goswami about her writing and personal life. It engages with her works in the context of her multifaceted, almost mythical life, especially her avowed ‘activism’ against animal sacrifice and militancy in her latter career.
Part of the Writer in Context series, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of Indian literature, Assamese literature, English literature, postcolonial studies, cultural studies, global south studies, gender studies and translation studies.
SECTION I
The Fiction of Indira Goswami
a. Extracts from Novels
1 The Moth-Eaten Howdah of the Tusker
INDIRA GOSWAMI
TRANSLATED BY DIBYAJYOTI SARMA
2 In the Shadow of the Divine Flute Player
INDIRA GOSWAMI
TRANSLATED BY GAYATRI BHATTACHARYYA
3 Pages Stained with Blood
INDIRA GOSWAMI
TRANSLATED BY PRADIP ACHARYA
4 Ahiran
INDIRA GOSWAMI
TRANSLATED BY DIBYAJYOTI SARMA
b. Extracts from Short Stories
5 Jatra
INDIRA GOSWAMI
TRANSLATED BY ANINDITA KAR
6 Pashu
INDIRA GOSWAMI
TRANSLATED BY ANINDITA KAR
7 Sanskar
INDIRA GOSWAMI
TRANSLATED BY ANINDITA KAR
8 Parashu Patarar Naad
INDIRA GOSWAMI
TRANSLATED BY ANINDITA KAR
SECTION II
The Non-Fictional Works of Indira Goswami
9 An Unfinished Autobiography
INDIRA GOSWAMI
TRANSLATED BY DIBYAJYOTI SARMA
10 Border Conflict, Love from Pakistan and a Poem
INDIRA GOSWAMI
TRANSLATED BY STUTI GOSWAMI AND JAHNU BHARADWAJ
11 The Last Meeting of Indira Gandhi and Amrita Pritam
INDIRA GOSWAMI
TRANSLATED BY STUTI GOSWAMI AND JAHNU BHARADWAJ
12 Burning
INDIRA GOSWAMI
TRANSLATED BY STUTI GOSWAMI AND JAHNU BHARADWAJ
13 The Immortality of the Assamese Language
INDIRA GOSWAMI
TRANSLATED BY STUTI GOSWAMI AND JAHNU BHARADWAJ
14 At the Hunger Strike of Harijan Workers in Raebareli
INDIRA GOSWAMI
TRANSLATED BY DAISY BARMAN
15 Chandni Chowk
INDIRA GOSWAMI
TRANSLATED BY DAISY BARMAN
16 Days at Vrindavan
INDIRA GOSWAMI
TRANSLATED BY DAISY BARMAN
17 G.B. Road’s Prohibited Neighbourhood
INDIRA GOSWAMI
TRANSLATED BY STUTI GOSWAMI AND JAHNU BHARADWAJ
SECTION III
Reading Indira Goswami: Literary Reception
18 Accounts of Inferno: A Reading of Indira Goswami’s Select Novels
HIREN GOHAIN
TRANSLATED BY JYOTIRMOY PRODHANI
19 Why Is Indira Goswami Great?
ARUNI KASHYAP
20 The Notion of Love in Indira Goswami’s Writings
NANDITA BASU
SECTION IV
Spaces to Inhabit: Private, Public and In-Between
21 Manavmurti: Amplitude and Entangled Spatio-Temporalities in ‘Jatra’
AMIT R. BAISHYA
22 The Story of Rama in the Critical-Intellectual Imagination of
Indira Goswami
DHURJJATI SARMA
23 Ramayana Revisited: A Reading of the Socio-cultural Life in Indira Goswami’s Ramayana from Ganga to Brahmaputra
PRITIMA SHARMA
24 Perception of Places and Locations in Indira Goswami’s Select Novels
MONBINDER KAUR
25 Of Spaces and Margins: Reading Gender and Domesticity in The Moth-Eaten Howdah of the Tusker
SANGHAMITRA DE
SECTION V
Many Margins of Indira Goswami: Flesh, Blood, Spirit
26 The Divine and the Mundane: Ritual Sacrifice, Blood and the Feminine Principle in Indira Goswami’s Under the Shadow of Kamakhya and The Man from Chinnamasta
VIBHA S CHAUHAN
27 Alternative Masculinities in Indira Goswami’s Fiction
PREETINICHA BARMAN AND DWIJEN SHARMA
28 Patriarchy and Resistance in Indira Goswami’s Short Story ‘The Offspring’
ARUP SARMA
29 Contesting Margins and Gendered Subalternity: Women in Indira Goswami and Mahasweta Devi’s Short Stories
NIZARA HAZARIKA
30 Trauma and Therapy: A Study of Depression Narratives in Indira Goswami’s Autobiographical Writings
SABREEN AHMED
31 Women and Films: A Critique of ‘Adajya’ (The Flight)
PRASENJIT DAS
32 Blood That Is Shed in Indira Goswami’s Writings
RATNOTTAMA DAS
SECTION VI
Indira Goswami in Conversation
33 The Journey of a Writer: Indira Goswami in Conversation with Subhajit Bhadra
SUBHAJIT BHADRA
34 Stitching Peace Together: An Interview of Indira Goswami
SANJOY HAZARIKA AND GEETI SEN
35 ‘From the creative point of view, I differ completely from others’
INDIRA GOSWAMI IN CONVERSATION WITH KUSHAL DUTTA
TRANSLATED BY SUDIPTA PHUKAN
SECTION VII
Writing as Translation: On Language and Craft
36 The Story behind My Writing
INDIRA GOSWAMI
37 Translating an Axamiya Saga: Towards a New Translationese
UDDIPANA GOSWAMI
38 Finding What May Be Lost: Translating Indira Goswami
DIBYAJYOTI SARMA
39 Cultural Practices in Translation: Translating The Bronze Sword of Thengphakri Tehsildar
PURABI GOSWAMI
SECTION VIII
From the Archives of Indira Goswami: Letters and Reminiscences
40 A Sister’s Confession
SABITA SARMA
TRANSLATED BY LAKHIPRIYA GOGOI
41 Letters of Indira Goswami
TRANSLATED BY DIBYAJYOTI SARMA
SECTION IX
Gathering the pieces: Chronology and Bibliography
Biography
Namrata Pathak teaches at the department of English, North-Eastern Hill University, Tura, Meghalaya, India. She has an M.Phil and PhD from English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, India.
Dibyajyoti Sarma is a writer and editor. He has published three volumes of poetry, three books of translations, and an academic book, besides numerous writing credits in edited volumes, journals and websites.
