Exploring Intersectionality in Bapsi Sidhwa’s Water, Kamila Shamsie’s Broken Verses and Ismat Chughtai’s The Quilt
Author : Kavya Dixit
Abstract :
The works of South Asian writers like Kamila Shamsie, Ismat Chughtai and Bapsi Sidhwa are situated on the cusp between reality and fiction. Water, published in 2006, by Bapsi Sidhwa not only injects the suffering of subaltern women in the patriarchal setup into a story, but also brings to surface the unresolved issues of Hindu customs with widowhood and child prostitution in India. Ismat Chughtai’s The Quilt entails an intersectional framework to explore the severe nature of oppression and discrimination that Muslim women are subjected to due to class relations, sexuality and colonialism. Kamila Shamsie’s Broken Verses, through the voice of her protagonist, deals with feminism and resistance and the issue of intersectional gender experiences of which both Aasmani and her mother were a part, in the Pakistani society. Thus, the paper's objective is to explore the complex nature of intersection of religion, political power, gender, class and caste and how women writers have tried to deflate and subvert the major issues through their literary pieces.
Keywords :
Intersectionality, feminism, race, gender, patriarchy, South Asian literature.
