Indian Writing in English and Issues of Visual Representation Judging More than a Book by its Cover

by Lau, Lisa; Dawson Varughese, E.

• ISBN13: 9781137474216
• ISBN10: 1137474211
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2015-05-25
• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot

Summary

This volume is dedicated to studying issues of visual representation in a postcolonial context. It explores the significance of book covers, forces of marketing, politics of identity, issues of representation, and the impact of globalization on New India. It case studies contemporary Indian women's writings in English; through analyzing themes of book cover images released by Western publishing houses as well as Indian ones, the question of how the Indian woman is represented is at the heart of this enquiry. This volume considers the roles and strategies of the publishing industry, the changing meanings and designs of book jackets, the branding of authors, positions Indian women writers in the marketplace as well as in the literary context, and considers reader reception and consumption practices. An interdisciplinary study, this book will be of interest to those following the developments of New India as well as those interested in the continual 'seeing' of India through Western lenses.

Author Biography

Lisa Lau is a lecturer at Keele University, specializing in postcolonial theory and literature, South Asian writing in English, and gender studies. Her keynote publication, Re-Orientalism and South Asian Identity Politics: The Oriental Other Within (2011), has been followed with further academic journal articles developing re-Orientalism theory and discourse, and most recently, her co-authored volume Re-Orientalism and Indian Writing in English (2014).

E. Dawson Varughese is a global cultural studies scholar, and the author of Beyond The Postcolonial (2012) and Reading New India (2013). She is currently working on a book entitled Genre Fiction of New India: post-millennial receptions of 'weird' narratives. See her work at: www.beyondthepostcolonial.com

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
1. Contextualising book covers and their changing roles; Lisa Lau
2. Positioning Indian Women's Writing in English (IWWE); Lisa Lau
3. The Mediated Woman on Indian Women's Writing book covers; Lisa Lau
4. The Post-millennial Indian Woman on the book covers of Kala's Almost Single and Gokhale's Priya; Emma Dawson Varughese
5. Conclusions; Emma Dawson Varughese
Index