The new series—Studies in Women Writers in English—is a grateful acknowledgment of the contribution and public recognition of the emerging voice of women in the arena of literature during the last few centuries, and especially in the latter half of the twentieth century. Women writers across the globe have made their distinctive mark, with their own perception of life—be it feminine, or feminist or female. The present volume, the fifth in the series, introduces critique of work by women writers; it bears evidence to the growing critical attention towards authors writing outside the mainstream, in America, Canada, and especially in India. The eighteen essays included in this fifth volume of the series cover a wide spectrum of women writers across space and time. The women writers discussed in this volume include one from Britain, i.e., Mary Shelley, one from America, i.e., Toni Morrison, the Nobel Laureate for literature in 1993, one from Canada, i.e., Margaret Laurence, and a host of Indian writers, from an early pioneer like Krupabai Satthianadan to the partition novelist Bapsi Sidwa, as well as contemporary avant-gardes like Shashi Deshpande, Anita Desai, Shobhaa De, Manju Kapur, and Arundhati Roy as well as the émigré Indian writer Bharati Mukherjee. Since most of the authors discussed in these articles are prescribed in the English syllabus in the universities of India, both the teachers and the students will find them extremely useful, and the general readers who are interested in literature in English and/or women writers will also find them intellectually stimulating.

Table of Contents:
1. ‘Transgression’ in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Some Debates on Human Cloning –Santwana Haldar 2. Existential Concerns in Toni Morrison –Devika 3. Existential Angst in Toni Morrison’s Jazz –Binod Mishra 4. Towards a Woman’s World: A Post-Feminist Reading of The Stone Angel –Rashmi Gaur and Rano Ringo 5. New Women in Transition: Krupabai Satthianadhan and Her Saguna –Madhu Joshi 6. Bapsi Sidwa’s The Ice-Candy Man as a Partition Novel –Mallikarjun Patil 7. Wife: A Study in Psychoanalytical Conflict –Binda Sharma and G.A. Ghanshyam 8. Communicative Chaos in Anita Desai’s In Custody –Binod Mishra 9. Continual Journey to Search in Journey to Ithaca –Sadhana Agrawal 10. Jasmine: A Rebel Against Traditional Conservatism –G.A. Ghanshyam 11. Woman: Her-Self and the Other, Conflict and Resolution in The Dark Holds No Terrors –S. Ambika 12. Writing from the Margins: A Study of Shashi Deshpande’s That Long Silence –Ram Sharma 13. Shobha De: To Read or Not to Read –Narinder Kumar Neb 14. The Holder of the World: A Saga of Alienation and Assimilation –G.A. Ghanshyam 15. Arundhati Roy’s Shock Treatment: Comments on The God of Small Things –Shubha Tiwari 16. Life’s Hidden Patterns: A Thematic Study of The God of Small Things –Binayak Ray 17. Disastrous Synthesis of Desire and Duty in Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters –Devika 18. Feminism: A Perspective –Mallikarjun Patil ‘O Those Extraordinary Women!’ Contributors