East is east and south is south: The cases of Sarojini Naidu and arundhati roy

Women: A Cultural Review

Volumn 11, Issue 1-2, 2000, Pages 61-70

  Boehmer, Elleke ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

India; Neoorientalism; Postcolonialism; The Oriental Feminine; The South; The West

Indexed keywords

EID: 61149344365     PISSN: 09574042     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09574040050051424     Document Type: Article

References (32)

1. 1938. “ Naidu's poetry appeared in four collections published between 1895 and 1917: Song, The Golden Threshold (1905), The Bird of Time (1912) and The Broken Wing. The 'little Indian princess' is Yeats's term, according to Maud Gönne, A Servant of the Queen ”. 331London: Victor Gollancz.
2. Gosse, Edmund. 1912. “ Introduction ”. In The Bird of Time Songs of Life, Death and the Spring, Edited by: Naidu, Sarojini. 7London: William Heinemann.
3. Loomba, Ania. 1998. Colonialism/ Postcolonialism, 245London: Routledge. For their comments on postcolonialism's neo-colonial complicities, see also
4. Moore-Gilbert, Bart. 1997. Postcolonial Theory Contexts, Practices, Politics, 317–21. New York and London: Verso.
5. Hamilton, Paul. 1996. “ Historicism ”. 178149London: Roudedge.
6. Spivak, Outside in the Teaching Machine, p. 277.
7. Slemon, Stephen. 1995. "The Scramble for Post-Colonialism' ”. In DeScribing Empire, Edited by: Tiffin, Chris, and Lawson, Alan. 15–32. London: Roudedge. For a useful overview of the different axes inscribed or ascribed by postcolonial criticism, see
8. Bhabha, Homi. 1995. The Location of Culture, 126–7. London: Routledge.
9. Naidu, Sarojini. 1998. “ 'Songs of My City' ”. In Empire Writing, Edited by: Boehmer, E., 314–15. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
10. Crew, Shirley. 1997. "The House in Kerala'. Times Literary Supplement, 30 May: 23
11. Clark, Alex. 1997. 'Fatal Distractions'. Guardian, 19 June
12. Gorra, Michael. 1997. 'Living in the Aftermath'. London Review of Books, 19 June: 22–3.
13. Moss, Stephen. 1997. 'A Contest Won in a Vacuum'. Guardian, 15 October
14. 1997. 'Interview'. Vrij Nederland, 18 October: 18
15. Latterly, across 1998 and 1999, no doubt in part on the back of Roy's success, a number of Indian women first novelists have sprung into prominence: Kiran Desai, Manju Kapur, Ameena Meer, Shauna Singh Baldwin.
16. 1997. 'CV: David Godwin'. Independent, 20 October
17. Beer, Gillian. 1997. quoted in Guardian, 15 October
18. 1997. Alice Truax's review in New York Times Book Review, 25 May: 5
19. Straaten, Floris van. 1997. 'Wreedheid als sleutel tot de liefde'. AKC Handelsblad (Amsterdam), 17 October: 10
20. Spivak, Gayatri. 1993. “ Outside in the Teaching Machine ”. 277London: Roudedge.
21. 1991. 'Neocolonialism and the Secret Agent of Knowledge'. interview with Robert Young, Oxford Literary Review: Neocolonialism, 13: 226 has used the term 'new orientalism' to describe the homogenizing, deconteztualizing effects of late twentieth-century multiculturalism. I prefer 'neo-orientalism', because of its analogy with neo-colonialism
22. The intensity accentuated of course by the famously erratic capitalization of The God of Small Things.
23. Eagleton, Terry. 1990. “ The Ideology of the Aesthetic ”. 380London: Blackwell. The very phrases used to articulate this advance are often expressive of western Christian humanist values. In this sense we might want to apply Terry Eagleton's line describing the persistence of total systems in a postmodern world to postcolonialism: "The term "post", if it has any meaning at all, means business as usual, only more sa'
24. Ahmad, Aijaz. 1992. “ Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures ”. 33New York and London: Verso.
25. 1998. Jon Mee's speculations on the ideological work done within India by the Indian novel in English, 'After Midnight: the Indian Novel in English of the 80s and 90s'. Postcolonial Studies, 1/1 April: 127 esp. 132, 134
26. Naidu, Sarojini. 1905. “ intro. Arthur Symons ”. In The Golden Threshold, London: William Heinemann. was dedicated to Gosse and brought together the poems written after his intervention
27. Tharu, Susie, and Lalita, K., eds. 1991. “ Women Writing in India: 600 RC to the Present ”. vol. 1, 329–40. Delhi: Oxford University Press. See, for example
28. Symons, Arthur. Introduction. Naidu, Golden Threshold, 918
29. Dirlik, Arif. 1996. "The Postcolonial Aura: Third World Criticism in the Age of Global Capitalism' ”. In Contemporary Postcolonial Theory, Edited by: Mongia, Padmini. 311London: Arnold. I am here following Arif Dirlik's definition: "North connotes the pathways of transnational capitalism, and South, the marginalized populations of the world, regardless of their location'
30. 'South' can also be read less metaphorically in so far as the rich countries of the world tend to be concentrated in the northern hemisphere.
31. Young, Robert J. C. 1995. Colonial Desire, 27–8. London: Routledge.
32. Roy, Arundhati. 1997. “ The God of Small Thing? ”. London: Flamingo. Page references will be included in the text Before 18 October 1997, the novel was already reputed to have sold 500,000 copies in eighteen languages