As the supernatural weaves into the narrative of family life, the Mittals must struggle to come to terms with the secrets that had been locked away behind a mysterious bolted door. Themes of hidden shame, forbidden love and a call for absolute sacrifice enrich this beautifully written novel. Agarwal unfolds the story against an intense portrait of Bombay, delving into the world of the slum-dwellers, prostitutes and hermaphrodites who survive on the peripheries of Indian society.
The story of smalltime Ugandan Indian landlord Naranbhai, who likes to think big-big -- big house, big business schemes, two wives -- unfolds when two strangers, who share a childhood fairy tale, meet thirty years after the Asian Expulsion
Vampires, zombies, ghosts, and ghoulies: there are more things going bump in the night than ever. So how do you wend your way through all of them to find the ones that interest a particular reader? RA expert Spratford updates her advisory to include the latest in monsters and the macabre, including Lists of recommended titles, authors, and sub-genres, all cross-referenced for quick reference Tips for effectively practicing horror RA, with interview questions for gauging a reader’s interests An expanded resources section, with an overview addressing the current state of horror lit, and suggestions of how to dig deeperAs both an introductory guide for librarians just dipping their toes into the brackish water of scary fiction, as well as a fount of new ideas for horror-aware reference staff, Spratford’s book is infernally appropriate.
"This resource in contemporary Gothic literature, film, and television takes a thematic approach, providing insights into the many forms the Gothic has taken in the twenty-first century"--
""Ever since the Gramscian notion of the subaltern became the lynch-pin of the counter-hegemonic project developed by the Subaltern Studies group in the early 1980s, attempts to give voice to India's unrepresented or under-represented classes have played a
Haunting Bollywood is a pioneering, interdisciplinary inquiry into the supernatural in Hindi cinema that draws from literary criticism, postcolonial studies, queer theory, history, and cultural studies. Hindi commercial cinema has been invested in the supernatural since its earliest days, but only a small segment of these films have been adequately explored in scholarly work; this book addresses this gap by focusing on some of Hindi cinema’s least explored genres. From Gothic ghost films of the 1950s to snake films of the 1970s and 1980s to today’s globally influenced zombie and vampire films, Meheli Sen delves into what the supernatural is and the varied modalities through which it raises questions of film form, history, modernity, and gender in South Asian public cultures. Arguing that the supernatural is dispersed among multiple genres and constantly in conversation with global cinematic forms, she demonstrates that it is an especially malleable impulse that routinely pushes Hindi film into new formal and stylistic territories. Sen also argues that gender is a particularly accommodating stage on which the supernatural rehearses its most basic compulsions; thus, the interface between gender and genre provides an exceptionally productive lens into Hindi cinema’s negotiation of the modern and the global. Haunting Bollywood reveals that the supernatural’s unruly energies continually resist containment, even as they partake of and sometimes subvert Hindi cinema’s most enduring pleasures, from songs and stars to myth and melodrama.
Asian American literature is one of the most recent forms of ethnic literature and is already becoming one of the most prominent, given the large number of writers, the growing ethnic population from the region, the general receptivity of this body of work, and the quality of the authors. In recent decades, there has been an exponential growth in their output and much Asian American literature has now achieved new levels of popular success and critical acclaim. Nurtured by rich and long literary traditions from the vast continent of Asia, this literature is poised between the ancient and the modern, between the East and West, and between the oral and the written. The Historical Dictionary of Asian American Literature and Theater covers the activities in this burgeoning field. First, its history is traced year by year from 1887 to the present, in a chronology, and the introduction provides a good overview. The most important section is the dictionary, with over 600 substantial and cross-referenced entries on authors, books, and genres as well as more general ones describing the historical background, cultural features, techniques and major theatres and clubs. More reading can be found through an extensive bibliography with general works and those on specific authors. The book is thus a good place to get started, or to expanded one's horizons, about a branch of American literature that can only grow in importance.
