On the Outside Looking In(Dian): Indian Women Writers at Home and Abroad

On the Outside Looking In(dian) analyzes works over the past century translated into or written in English by feminist Indian women writers such as Krupabai Satthianadhan, Rokeya Sakhewat Hossein, Maitreyi Devi, Kamala Das, Anita Desai, Bharati Mukherjee, and others. These writers condemn patriarchal customs and laws for depriving Indian women - of all castes and classes, as well as women of other cultures - of their basic human rights by sanctioning child marriage, sati, purdah, and the wearing of the burqa, while prohibiting widow remarriage, the expression of sexuality, and the pursuit of an education to promote self-sufficiency, and equal economic, political, and social status with men.

The Author: Phillipa Kafka, Professor Emerita and former Director of Women’s Studies at Kean University in Union, New Jersey, is the author of four books: The Great White Way: African American Women Writers and American Success Mythologies; (Un)Doing the Missionary Position: Gender Assymetry in Contemporary Asian American Women’s Writing; (Out)Classed Women: Contemporary Chicana Writers on Inequitable Gendered Power Relations; and «Saddling La Gringa» Gatekeeping in Literature by Contemporary Latina Writers.