Dr. Shagufta Parween

History and politics has been a persistent concern of the Indian English writers ever since the origin of English novel writing in India. The last three decades have witnessed the publication of many novels that belong to the genre of postmodern historiographic metafiction. Indian authors have engaged themselves in a retelling of the standard versions of history by both experimenting with the narrative technique and a portrayal of multiple points of view that both decenters any authoritative form of knowledge and hints at the possibility of multiple truths. In this article I will try to explore why Shashi Tharoor’s novel, Riot can be described as a quintessential postmodern historiographic metafiction, by pointing out its chief features that are present in the novel.

The aim of this research paper is to offer a postcolonial interpretative reading of Daniel Defoe’s magnum opus Robinson Crusoe. For years the text has been appreciated as a classic text of adventure, a tale of individualism, capitalism and also of spiritual growth. It has been studied as an exemplary text representing the liberal, adventurous and progressive spirit of the age. And while postcolonial elements in the narrative have been discussed before, critical readings of the text have not laid enough focus on the extreme denigration and essentialization of the native culture and religion and the repeated acts of assault on nature and animals that the ruler/colonialist, Crusoe engages in the fiction. This paper seeks to explore this gap in the field of critical inquiry with respect to the text of Robinson Crusoe.

Home has been a persistent concern in the work of fiction writers. Specifically, in the novels of women writers, the preoccupation with the concept of a home assumes enormous significance. The literary renderings of a home vary from it being used as a theme, a concept, a trope, a metaphor, a symbol and an idea saturated with metaphysical dimensions. The current burgeoning of women-centric fictions by female authors have emphasized not only the primacy of home in women’s lives but also how it transforms into a prison-house, reducing them to abject submission and slavery. This paper attempts to stress the centrality of home and its myriad connotations in Manju Kapur’s novel Home.

The role and importance of English Language in today's globalized world is increasing every day. Second language learners of English Language, especially those form vernacular backgrounds find it tremendously difficult to cope up with the demands of a foreign tongue. The learning of English when it is imparted through the rote method of learning and only through grammar does not incite the curiosity and enthusiasm among the students. Whereas, when the teaching/learning of English language is done through the use of literature the entire process comes alive. The learning of English through the application of literature not only becomes interesting and easier, but more easily graspable and enjoyable. This paper tries to focus on the use of literature as a pedagogical tool for the fostering of English Language proficiency among the students.

History and politics has been a persistent concern of the Indian English writers ever since the origin of English novel writing in
India. The last three decades have witnessed the publication of many novels that belong to the genre of postmodern
historiographic metafiction. Indian authors have engaged themselves in a retelling of the standard versions of history by both
experimenting with the narrative technique and a portrayal of multiple points of view that both decenters any authoritative form
of knowledge and hints at the possibility of multiple truths. In this article I will try to explore why Shashi Tharoor’s novel, Riot
can be described as a quintessential postmodern historiographic metafiction, by pointing out its chief features that are present in
the novel.
Keywords: Narrative, postmodern, historiographic, metafiction, history

Home has been a persistent concern in the work of fiction writers. Specifically, in the novels of women writers, the preoccupation with the concept of a home assumes enormous significance. The literary renderings of a home vary from it being used as a theme, a concept, a trope, a metaphor, a symbol and an idea saturated with metaphysical dimensions. The current burgeoning of women-centric fictions by female authors have emphasized not only the primacy of home in women’s lives but also how it transforms into a prison-house, reducing them to abject submission and slavery. This paper attempts to stress the centrality of home and its myriad connotations in Manju Kapur’s novel Home.

Abstract
Fredric Jameson in his essay “Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism” describes the literature authored in the so-called ‘third world’ as  national allegories” where the life of the individuals always reflects the larger public life of the nation. This paper attempts to take up Jameson’s premise as a useful point of analysis and investigation and contextualizes Tahmima Anam’s The Good Muslim (2011) in the light of Jameson’s postulate of third-world texts as ‘national allegories’. It explores the multiple allegorical significations and representational strategy adopted by the Bangladeshi fiction writer in her second novel. It seeks to examine the fiction under scrutiny within Jameson’s postulation of the public-private, individual-national novelistic merger. It tries to explain how the lived experience of a person in the private space is tied up with the public space and the larger national reality through the use of allegory by revealing the correspondences between the vicissitudes of the nation, Bangladesh with that of its central characters, the siblings Maya and Sohail. The period of nation formation, liberation and nation building parallel the childhood, youth and adulthood of the novels’ two central protagonists. In the inextricable linking of the national and the collective fate and the binary which have appeared, children such as Zaid (nation’s future) and mother figures such as Rehana (nation’s past) are caught in a flux.
Keywords: Anam, Good Muslim, Bangladesh, Jameson, Nation, National Allegory