Utopia and the village in South Asian literatures / Anupama Mohan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mohan, Anupama.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

South Asian literature (English)--History and criticism.

South Asian literature (English).

Rural conditions in literature.

Utopias in literature.

Physical Description:

vii, 234 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Summary:

Utopia and the Village in South Asian Literatures provides a searching exploration of twentieth-century literatures of the Indian subcontinent by refocusing attention on works that engage with the village and the rural as a trope. Mohan breathes new life into Michel Foucault's notion of heterotopia and continues a conversation with thinkers of utopia about the need for recuperating the utopian potential in postcolonial writings. The book provides provocative readings of some of the most important works of the twentieth century in India and Sri Lanka and, in its conceptual sweep, presents a novel way of theorizing the intersecting but also distinct literary histories of India and Sri Lanka. For both the novice and the scholar, this is a book that will truly define the horizons for understanding South Asian literatures and cultures, and their broader significance within postcolonial scholarship. Book jacket.

Contents:

Hind Swaraj and rural utopia

Beddagama: dystopia in Ceylon

Kanthapura and Khasak: utopia in distress

Koggala and the reclaimed buddhist utopia

Rethinking the binary: rural heterotopia.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780230354982

023035498X

OCLC:

785873604