Subverting the Mother of South Asia

A Description by Way of Prescription

Abstract

This article sets out to accomplish two tasks. First, it makes
clear the distinction as to what constitutes South Asian literature in the
first place. Secondly to establish that the Mother is an important
ideological construct in Third World literatures, one which is used to
counter the onslaught of Western neo-colonialism, it highlights the way
the ideology of the Mother has been disrupted in those books of fiction
which have come to be known as South Asian literature. It traces the
reason for this disruption to the fact that many of these writers are
producing literature for the consumption of the Western English-reading
public. The focus of the article is on fiction written about Pakistan and
Pakistanis, so I have selected texts by two male writers, namely, Salman
Rushdie and Hanif Kureishi, and I briefly contrast them with those
written by two women writers, namely, Sara Suleri and Bapsi Sidhwa.
All four live outside South Asia.