Focusing on the linguistic and stylistic elements of contemporary Indian English fiction, this volume delves into how language shapes meaning, identity, and ideology. Through an interdisciplinary approach, it analyzes the works of notable authors such as Jeet Thayil, Deepa Anappara, Avni Doshi, Tabish Khair, and Megha Majumdar, highlighting the diverse narratives and cultural contexts that define modern Indian literature.
Contributions are arranged in four main sections. The first section (Other spaces, new worlds) deals with Hindi and Arabic Science Fiction. The second section (Constructing forms of otherness) analyses the narrative and psychological mechanisms that give forms to a stereotype or archetypical image of the threatening Other. The third section ((Re)shaping style(s), language(s) and discourse(s) of otherness) is centered on the idea of language as a tool to build up styles, genres and texts, and literature as an escape from disappointing history and a cross-cultural wandering space of narrative ghosts. The fourth section (Circulating fearful otherness) tests the limits and heuristic potential of a philological approach in reconstructing the wide circulation of motifs and characters from antiquity to (post-)modernity. - The cutting-edge quality of this volume lies in both its variegated contents ranging from Indian Cultures to Arabic Literature and Film Studies, Stylistics in English-language fiction and Postcolonial authors to Semitic and Classical Philology - In the fields of science fiction and fantasy, as well as their narrative cognates and ancestors, in the so-called 'oriental context' have not -so far- received proper critical attention, and thus the book provides a series of stimulating insights into various themes and areas
