Contents: Preface. Introduction. 1. Westernization and expatriation. 2. Zoroastrian worldview. 3. Parsee writing: a note. 4. The Twain shall meet: Bapsi Sidhwa’s novels. 5. A dark India: Mistry’s Such a Long Journey. 6. Tales of education: Firdaus Kanga’s Trying to Grow and Ardashir Vakil’s Beach Boy. 7. Marriage of true minds: Karanjia’s More of an Indian. 8. Between the two worlds: Farrukh Dhondy’s Bombay Duck and Boman Desai’s The Memory of Elephants. 9. Gandhi in the unconscious: Dina Mehta’s And Some Take a Lover. Conclusion. Bibliography.

"Parsees have made a signal contribution to the canon of postcolonial fiction. They fall into two categories: expatriates and stay-at-home writers. Steeped in the rich Zoroastrian myths and legends, young promising Parsee novelists like Firdaus Kanga, Rohinto Mistry, Farrukh Dhondy, Bapsi Sidhwa, Ardashir Vakil and Boman Desai use English as an instrument of self-assertion. At the same time, they are not blind to the challenges confronting the miniscule community such as mixed marriage and demographic decline. This work seeks to examine the major thematic preoccupations of both the expatriate and stay-at-home Parsee novelists in relation to the Zoroastrian world-view." (jacket)