Indira Goswami Margins and Beyond

This book engages with the life and works of Indira Goswami, the first Assamese woman writer to win the highest national literary award, the Jnanpith Award, in 2001. From sociological treatises to a springboard of a socio-political milieu, Goswami’s texts are intersections of the local and the global, the popular and the canonical. The writer’s penchant for transcending boundaries gives a new contour and shape to the social and cultural domains in her texts. That every character is a representative of the society, that the context comes alive in every evocation of class struggle, power play, caste discrimination and gendered narratives add an interesting semantic load to her texts. While tracing the trajectories discussed above, this book foregrounds Goswami’s act of going beyond the margins of varied kinds, both abstract and concrete, in search of egalitarian and democratic spaces of life. The book looks at Indira Goswami’s works with a special emphasis on the author situated within the Assamese literary canon. It not only discusses the themes and issues within her writing, but also focuses on the distinct language and style she uses. The volume includes non-fictional prose, excerpts from her short stories and novels, viewpoints of critics, letters and entries from diaries, as well as interviews with Goswami about her writing and personal life. It engages with her works in the context of her multifaceted, almost mythical life, especially her avowed ‘activism’ against animal sacrifice and militancy in her latter career. Part of the Writer in Context series, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of Indian literature, Assamese literature, English literature, postcolonial studies, cultural studies, global south studies, gender studies and translation studies.

SECTION I The Fiction of Indira Goswami a. Extracts from Novels 1 The Moth-Eaten Howdah of the Tusker INDIRA GOSWAMI TRANSLATED BY DIBYAJYOTI SARMA 2 In the Shadow of the Divine Flute Player INDIRA GOSWAMI TRANSLATED BY GAYATRI BHATTACHARYYA 3 Pages Stained with Blood INDIRA GOSWAMI TRANSLATED BY PRADIP ACHARYA 4 Ahiran INDIRA GOSWAMI TRANSLATED BY DIBYAJYOTI SARMA b. Extracts from Short Stories 5 Jatra INDIRA GOSWAMI TRANSLATED BY ANINDITA KAR 6 Pashu INDIRA GOSWAMI TRANSLATED BY ANINDITA KAR 7 Sanskar INDIRA GOSWAMI TRANSLATED BY ANINDITA KAR 8 Parashu Patarar Naad INDIRA GOSWAMI TRANSLATED BY ANINDITA KAR SECTION II The Non-Fictional Works of Indira Goswami 9 An Unfinished Autobiography INDIRA GOSWAMI TRANSLATED BY DIBYAJYOTI SARMA 10 Border Conflict, Love from Pakistan and a Poem INDIRA GOSWAMI TRANSLATED BY STUTI GOSWAMI AND JAHNU BHARADWAJ 11 The Last Meeting of Indira Gandhi and Amrita Pritam INDIRA GOSWAMI TRANSLATED BY STUTI GOSWAMI AND JAHNU BHARADWAJ 12 Burning INDIRA GOSWAMI TRANSLATED BY STUTI GOSWAMI AND JAHNU BHARADWAJ 13 The Immortality of the Assamese Language INDIRA GOSWAMI TRANSLATED BY STUTI GOSWAMI AND JAHNU BHARADWAJ 14 At the Hunger Strike of Harijan Workers in Raebareli INDIRA GOSWAMI TRANSLATED BY DAISY BARMAN 15 Chandni Chowk INDIRA GOSWAMI TRANSLATED BY DAISY BARMAN 16 Days at Vrindavan INDIRA GOSWAMI TRANSLATED BY DAISY BARMAN 17 G.B. Road’s Prohibited Neighbourhood INDIRA GOSWAMI TRANSLATED BY STUTI GOSWAMI AND JAHNU BHARADWAJ SECTION III Reading Indira Goswami: Literary Reception 18 Accounts of Inferno: A Reading of Indira Goswami’s Select Novels HIREN GOHAIN TRANSLATED BY JYOTIRMOY PRODHANI 19 Why Is Indira Goswami Great? ARUNI KASHYAP 20 The Notion of Love in Indira Goswami’s Writings NANDITA BASU SECTION IV Spaces to Inhabit: Private, Public and In-Between 21 Manavmurti: Amplitude and Entangled Spatio-Temporalities in ‘Jatra’ AMIT R. BAISHYA 22 The Story of Rama in the Critical-Intellectual Imagination of Indira Goswami DHURJJATI SARMA 23 Ramayana Revisited: A Reading of the Socio-cultural Life in Indira Goswami’s Ramayana from Ganga to Brahmaputra PRITIMA SHARMA 24 Perception of Places and Locations in Indira Goswami’s Select Novels MONBINDER KAUR 25 Of Spaces and Margins: Reading Gender and Domesticity in The Moth-Eaten Howdah of the Tusker SANGHAMITRA DE SECTION V Many Margins of Indira Goswami: Flesh, Blood, Spirit 26 The Divine and the Mundane: Ritual Sacrifice, Blood and the Feminine Principle in Indira Goswami’s Under the Shadow of Kamakhya and The Man from Chinnamasta VIBHA S CHAUHAN 27 Alternative Masculinities in Indira Goswami’s Fiction PREETINICHA BARMAN AND DWIJEN SHARMA 28 Patriarchy and Resistance in Indira Goswami’s Short Story ‘The Offspring’ ARUP SARMA 29 Contesting Margins and Gendered Subalternity: Women in Indira Goswami and Mahasweta Devi’s Short Stories NIZARA HAZARIKA 30 Trauma and Therapy: A Study of Depression Narratives in Indira Goswami’s Autobiographical Writings SABREEN AHMED 31 Women and Films: A Critique of ‘Adajya’ (The Flight) PRASENJIT DAS 32 Blood That Is Shed in Indira Goswami’s Writings RATNOTTAMA DAS SECTION VI Indira Goswami in Conversation 33 The Journey of a Writer: Indira Goswami in Conversation with Subhajit Bhadra SUBHAJIT BHADRA 34 Stitching Peace Together: An Interview of Indira Goswami SANJOY HAZARIKA AND GEETI SEN 35 ‘From the creative point of view, I differ completely from others’ INDIRA GOSWAMI IN CONVERSATION WITH KUSHAL DUTTA TRANSLATED BY SUDIPTA PHUKAN SECTION VII Writing as Translation: On Language and Craft 36 The Story behind My Writing INDIRA GOSWAMI 37 Translating an Axamiya Saga: Towards a New Translationese UDDIPANA GOSWAMI 38 Finding What May Be Lost: Translating Indira Goswami DIBYAJYOTI SARMA 39 Cultural Practices in Translation: Translating The Bronze Sword of Thengphakri Tehsildar PURABI GOSWAMI SECTION VIII From the Archives of Indira Goswami: Letters and Reminiscences 40 A Sister’s Confession SABITA SARMA TRANSLATED BY LAKHIPRIYA GOGOI 41 Letters of Indira Goswami TRANSLATED BY DIBYAJYOTI SARMA SECTION IX Gathering the pieces: Chronology and Bibliography

Namrata Pathak teaches at the department of English, North-Eastern Hill University, Tura, Meghalaya, India. She has an M.Phil and PhD from English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, India.   Dibyajyoti Sarma is a writer and editor. He has published three volumes of poetry, three books of translations, and an academic book, besides numerous writing credits in edited volumes, journals and websites.