In the Shadow of Partition: Seventy-five Years and Beyond

This book brings together conversations about the Partition and its haunting residues in the present as represented in literary, visual, oral, and material cultures of the subcontinent and beyond.

The seventy-fifth anniversary of Partition confronts scholars with significantly new subjects for reflection. The question of historical memory has now largely transformed to one of its reproductions through mass politics and mass media and, perhaps, professional academic inquiry, while the very meaning or value of Independence is in crisis. This edited volume includes chapters on representations of partition experiences and the re-drawing of the subcontinent’s political map. While the impact of the partition of the Punjab has been the focus of much scholarly studies in the past, and Bengal to a smaller extent, this collection extends the examination of the impact of this political event elsewhere in other communities in the subcontinent, and across other differentials.

This book will be of interest to students, scholars and researchers of Indian history, Partition studies, literature, popular culture and performance, postcolonial studies, and South Asian studies. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of South Asian Review.

Nalini Iyer is Professor of English at Seattle University and Chief Editor of South Asian Review. Among her numerous publications is the co-edited book Revisiting India’s Partition: New Essays in Memory, Culture, and Politics.

Debali Mookerjea-Leonard is Roop Distinguished Professor of English at James Madison University, Harrisonburg, USA. She is the author of Literature, Gender, and the Trauma of Partition: The Paradox of Independence. She also translates Bengali poetry and fiction, including Sunil Gangopadhyay’s Blood and Bani Basu’s The Continents Between.