“A woman is physically, emotionally and psychologically different from man. Let her build a world of her own and let man lend her a hand to do so.” This Volume by Dr. Neeru Tandon addresses the problems of the pluralistic societies—Indian, Canadian and Afro-American—through an inter-textual, cross-cultural analysis of novels, mostly by women writers. As a step in the radiating of self-awareness, self-observation and self-appraisal for woman in general and as a meaningful comment on the creative effort of writers, the insights revealed here are of immense value. Despite the remarkable variety in themes, it is still possible to locate areas of common concern amongst contemporary writers. Anita Desai, Shashi Deshpande, Bharati Mukherjee, Ann Bhalla, Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Elfried Jelinek, Kiran Desai, Namita Gokhale, Shobha De along with Nissim Ezekiel, Jayanta Mahapatra and Amitav Ghosh are outstanding writers whose portraits of life and culture are characterized by a vision distinctively feminine and different from that of the previous images available. Views of famous novelist Anuradha Marwah, well-known mind strategist Ms. Sandeep Mohan and inclusion of sensitive issues like rape, lesbianism, neurotic female psyche, gender discourses, domestic violence, etc. enrich this volume.

Table of Contents:
Foreword; Preface; 1. Introduction; 2. Edited Out: Indian Women’s Writing in English and the Nation–Anuradha Marwah; 3. Men Can Be Feminist Too–Sandeep Mohan; 4. Identity and its Representation in Western and Postcolonial Feminism–Archana Kumar; 5. Feminist Consciousness and Language Change: Focus on English Language–R.P. Singh; 6. Feminist Consciousness in Namita Gokhle–N.M. Nigam; 7. Rape: The Death of Dignity–Neeru Tandon; 8. Exploring Neurosis in the Feminine Psyche–Supriya Shukla; 9. The Neurotic Female Psyche in the Novels—Cry, The Peacock and The Edible Woman—A Comparative Study–Anshul Chandra; 10. From Feminism to Post-Feminism: A Critique of Woman’s Discourse–B.R. Agarwal; 11. Lesbian Consciousness in Shobha De’s Fiction–Neeru Tandon and Preeti Tiwari; 12. Feminism as Womanism through an Eye-glance of Alice Walker (with Special Reference to The Color Purple)–Nidhi Arora; 13. Feminism Refined—Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide in the Light of Shashi Deshpande’s No Man is an Island–Jaya Kapoor; 14. The Journey to Selfhood in Canadian Fiction: A Critical Study of Margaret Eleanor Atwood’s Novels–Anshul Chandra and Ranjana Mishra; 15. Norms of Gender Discourse in the Novels of Toni Morrison and Elfriede Jelinek–Kavita Shukla; 16. Ecofeminism in Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing and The Handmaid’s Tale–Neeru Tandon and Anshul Chandra; 17. Evolution of the Modern Woman–Chhaya Jain; 18. Domestic Violence in Alice Walker’s The Third Life of Grange Copeland–Neeru Tandon and Nidhi Kapoor; 19. Feminist Consciousness in the Writings of Ann Bhalla–Shravan Kumar; 20. Nissim Ezekiel’s Perception of Woman–Neeru Tandon and R.P. Pradhan; 21. A Conversation with Jayanta Mahapatra–Neeru Tandon; 22. Culture and Gender Identity in Canadian Fiction: A Study of Margaret Atwood–Neeru Tandon and Ranjana Mishra; 23. The Journey of ‘Woman’ from Pre-independence to Post-Modern Indian-English Drama–Reshu Shukla; Bibliography; Contributors