Feminist voices in the novels of Kamala Markandaya

Pages:1-3
Sunitti Kalra (Research Scholar, Department of English, Singhania University, Rajasthan)

Indian women novelists in English have been presenting woman as the center of concern in their novels. A woman’s search for identity is a recurrent theme in their fiction. Kamala Markandaya is one of the finest and most distinguished Indian novelists in English of the post colonial era who is internationally recognized for her masterpiece ‘Nectar in a Sieve’ published in 1954. She has achieved a world-wide distinction by winning Asian Prize for her literary achievement in 1974. Endowed with strong Indian sensibility, she depicts women’s issues and problems very deeply in her novels. A woman’s quest for identity and redefining her self finds reflection in her novels and constitutes a significant motif of the female characters in her fiction. Her deep instinctive insight into women’s problems and dilemmas helps her in drawing a realistic portrait of a contemporary woman. She explores and interprets the emotional reactions and spiritual responses of women and their predicament with sympathetic understanding.