Full Description
This book argues that women writers of colour, specifically those situated within Anglophone diasporic contexts, have played a significant role in the rewriting and diversification of women's relations in literature, mainly by dismantling the traditional view of women as kindred spirits and of women's friendships as exclusively private bonds. Through an interdisciplinary framework that is based on philosophical, sociological, and literary criticism, the book explores how the selected contemporary novels complexify the representation of female bonds in literature by adding sociological vectors of difference related to the characters' respective gender, racial, sexual, class, and national identities. Additionally, the book examines how these fictional bonds play a political role by creating a space that both motivates the characters' civic agency and enables the authors to explore ethical human connections. All in all, this book addresses a central concern in contemporary society: how we form relationships with one another and how we might cultivate ethical connections that enhance both individual and collective well-being.
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: Bonding across Racial and Class Boundaries: An Updated View of Confidante Friendship in Zadie Smith's NW and Swing Time.- Chapter 3: Moving Beyond the Dyad: A Conceptualisation of Triadic Female Friendship through Meera Syal's Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee and Leone Ross's All the Blood is Re.- Chapter 4: Crossing the Border: A Decolonial Perspective of Transnational Women's Relations in Meera Syal's The House of Hidden Mothers and Sefi Atta's The Bead Collector.- Chapter 5: Queer Friendships: A Resistance against 'Compulsory Heterosexuality' and the Patriarchal Oppression of Female Bodies of Colour in Nicole Dennis-Benn's Patsy and Sarah Thankam Mathews's All this Could be Different.- Chapter 6: Conclusions.
