Fiction and Society : Narrativisation of Realities in the Novels of Shashi Deshpande and Githa Hariharan

Contents: Preface. 1. Introduction. 2. Mythological stories. 3. Real-life stories. 4. Stories of survival. 5. Storytelling and storytellers. 6. Embedded stories and narrative structure. 7. Conclusion. Bibliography. Index.

The book, working through a close reading of the two writers--Shashi Deshpande and Githa Hariharan--explores the fluid and multi-layered nature of reality and is relationship to fiction. There can be no clear division between the two and they exist in a tenuous and magical relationship that cannot be easily dissolved by a return to the real world.

Both the writers have used storytelling traditions and techniques with which they work on (re)formulating our understanding of reality. Storytelling, which uses the memory as a fictionalizing agent, forms new patterns of transforming reality into a new construct. This goes on to destabilize underlying assumptions and helps us look afresh at socio-cultural realities from multiple viewpoints. Embedding of stories, both mythological and real, into the narrative, expands the narrative structure and lends an additional dimension to the novels.

The author takes the position that grounded in social, historical and political realities, the works of these two writers exhibit an intense postmodern self-reflexivity that allow for alternative visions of reality. This takes the study away from being confined to a feminist reading of the two contemporary great writers who have made a significant contribution to the world of literature. (jacket)