Table Of ContentCONTEMPORARY
ENGLISH-LANGUAGE
INDIAN CHILDREN’S
LITERATURE
Children’s Literature and Culture National Character in South African
Jack Zipes, Series Editor Children’s Literature
Elwyn Jenkins
For a complete series list, please go to
routledge.com Myth, Symbol, and Meaning in
Mary Poppins
How Picturebooks Work The Governess as Provocateur
Maria Nikolajeva and Carole Scott Georgia Grilli
Brown Gold A Critical History of French Children’s
Milestones of African American Children’s Literature, Vol. 1 & 2
Picture Books, 1845-2002 Penny Brown
Michelle H. Martin
Once Upon a Time in a Different World
Russell Hoban/Forty Years Issues and Ideas in African American
Essays on His Writing for Children Children’s Literature
Alida Allison Neal A. Lester
Apartheid and Racism in South African The Gothic in Children’s Literature
Children’s Literature Haunting the Borders
Donnarae MacCann and Edited by Anna Jackson, Karen Coats,
Amadu Maddy and Roderick McGillis
Empire’s Children Reading Victorian Schoolrooms
Empire and Imperialism in Classic British Childhood and Education in
Children’s Books Nineteenth-Century Fiction
M. Daphne Kutzer Elizabeth Gargano
Constructing the Canon of Soon Come Home to This Island
Children’s Literature West Indians in British Children’s Literature
Beyond Library Walls and Ivory Towers Karen Sands-O’Connor
Anne Lundin
Boys in Children’s Literature and
Youth of Darkest England Popular Culture
Working Class Children at the Heart of Masculinity, Abjection, and the
Victorian Empire Fictional Child
Troy Boone Annette Wannamaker
Ursula K. Leguin Beyond Genre Into the Closet
Literature for Children and Adults Cross-dressing and the Gendered Body
Mike Cadden in Children’s Literature
Victoria Flanagan
Twice-Told Children’s Tales
Edited by Betty Greenway Russian Children’s Literature and Culture
Edited by Marina Balina and
Diana Wynne Jones Larissa Rudova
The Fantastic Tradition and Children’s
Literature The Outside Child In and Out of the Book
Farah Mendlesohn Christine Wilkie-Stibbs
Childhood and Children’s Books in Representing Africa in Children’s Literature
Early Modern Europe, 1550-1800 Old and New Ways of Seeing
Edited by Andrea Immel and Vivian Yenika-Agbaw
Michael Witmore
The Fantasy of Family
Voracious Children Nineteenth-Century Children’s Literature
Who Eats Whom in Children’s Literature and the Myth of the Domestic Ideal
Carolyn Daniel Liz Thiel
From Nursery Rhymes to Nationhood Power, Voice and Subjectivity in Literature
Children’s Literature and the Construction for Young Readers
of Canadian Identity Maria Nikolajeva
Elizabeth A. Galway
“Juvenile” Literature and British Society,
The Family in English Children’s Literature 1850–1950
Ann Alston The Age of Adolescence
Charles Ferrall and Anna Jackson
Enterprising Youth
Social Values and Acculturation in Picturing the Wolf in Children’s Literature
Nineteenth-Century American Debra Mitts-Smith
Children’s Literature
Monika Elbert New Directions in Picturebook Research
Edited by Teresa Colomer, Bettina
Constructing Adolescence in Kümmerling-Meibauer, Cecilia Silva-Díaz
Fantastic Realism
Alison Waller The Role of Translators in Children’s
Literature
Crossover Fiction Invisible Storytellers
Global and Historical Perspectives Gillian Lathey
Sandra L. Beckett
The Children’s Book Business
The Crossover Novel Lessons from the Long Eighteenth Century
Contemporary Children’s Fiction and Its Lissa Paul
Adult Readership
Rachel Falconer Humor in Contemporary Junior Literature
Julie Cross
Shakespeare in Children’s Literature
Gender and Cultural Capital Innocence, Heterosexuality, and the
Erica Hateley Queerness of Children’s Literature
Tison Pugh
Critical Approaches to Food in
Children’s Literature Reading the Adolescent Romance
Edited by Kara K. Keeling and Sweet Valley and the Popular Young Adult
Scott T. Pollard Romance Novel
Amy S. Pattee
Neo-Imperialism in Children’s Literature
About Africa Irish Children’s Literature and Culture
A Study of Contemporary Fiction New Perspectives on Contemporary Writing
Yulisa Amadu Maddy and Donnarae Edited by Valerie Coghlan and
MacCann Keith O’Sullivan
Death, Gender and Sexuality in Beyond Pippi Longstocking
Contemporary Adolescent Literature Intermedial and International Perspectives
Kathryn James on Astrid Lindgren’s Work s
Edited by Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer
Fundamental Concepts of Children’s and Astrid Surmatz
Literature Research
Literary and Sociological Approaches Contemporary English-language
Hans-Heino Ewers Indian Children’s Literature:
Representations of Nation, Culture,
Children’s Fiction about 9/11 and the New Indian Girl
Ethnic, Heroic and National Identities Michelle Superle
Jo Lampert
The Place of Lewis Carroll in Children’s
Literature
Jan Susina
CONTEMPORARY
ENGLISH-LANGUAGE
INDIAN CHILDREN’S
LITERATURE
Representations of Nation, Culture,
and the New Indian Girl
MICHELLE SUPERLE
NEW YORK AND LONDON
First published 2011
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2011.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
© 2011 Taylor & Francis
The right of Michelle Superle to be identified as author of this work has been asserted
by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known
or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Superle, Michelle, 1974–
Contemporary English-language Indian children’s literature : representations of
nation, culture, and the new Indian girl / Michelle Superle.
p. cm. — (Children’s literature and culture ; 78)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Children’s literature, Indic (English)—History and criticism. 2. Indic fiction
(English)—Women authors—History and criticism. 3. Children—Books and
reading—India. 4. Gender identity—India. 5. India—In literature. I. Title.
PR9492.6.C45S87 2011
820.9'92820954—dc22
ISBN 0-203-81625-0 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN13: 978-0-415-88634-5 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-81625-7 (ebk)
Contents
Series Editor’s Foreword ix
Foreword xi
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction Contemporary English-language Indian Children’s
Novels as Aspirational Literature 1
Chapter 1 The Development of Contemporary, English-language
Indian Children’s Novels 19
Chapter 2 Indian Women Writers: Imagining the New Indian Girl 37
Chapter 3 Imagining Unity in Diversity through Cooperation
and Friendship 61
Chapter 4 Imagining and Performing the Indian Nation 85
Chapter 5 Imagining “Indianness” 105
Chapter 6 Imagining Identity in the Diaspora: Performing
a “Masala” Self 131
Chapter 7 Performing New Indian Girlhood 151
Conclusion Old and New Boundaries 177
Appendix 181
Notes 183
Bibliography 189
Index 199
vii
Series Editor’s Foreword
Dedicated to furthering original research in children’s literature and culture,
the Children’s Literature and Culture series includes monographs on individual
authors and illustrators, historical examinations of different periods, literary
analyses of genres, and comparative studies on literature and the mass media.
The series is international in scope and is intended to encourage innovative
research in children’s literature with a focus on interdisciplinary methodology.
Children’s literature and culture are understood in the broadest sense of
the term children to encompass the period of childhood up through adoles-
cence. Owing to the fact that the notion of childhood has changed so much
since the origination of children’s literature, this Routledge series is particu-
larly concerned with transformations in children’s culture and how they have
affected the representation and socialization of children. While the emphasis
of the series is on children’s literature, all types of studies that deal with chil-
dren’s radio, fi lm, television, and art are included in an endeavour to grasp the
aesthetics and values of children’s culture. Not only have there been momen-
tous changes in children’s culture in the last fi fty years, but there have been
radical shifts in the scholarship that deals with these changes. In this regard,
the goal of the Children’s Literature and Culture series is to enhance research
in this fi eld and, at the same time, point to new directions that bring together
the best scholarly work throughout the world.
Jack Zipes
ix
