A genre of her own : life narrarives and feminist literary beginnings in modern India / Gayathri Prabhu.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Note -- Introduction: Contravention of Beginnings -- 1 The Pamphleteer, the Letter-Writer and the Essayist -- The vitality of just anger: Tarabai Shinde's Stri-Purush Tulana (1882) -- Letters for an eavesdropping public ear: Anandibai Joshee's letters (1883 -- 1884) -- Assertions, contradictions and speaking of law: Rukhmabai's "Reply" (1887) -- 2 The Memoirist, the Dramatist and the Novelist -- The interlocutor of dreams: Rashsundari Debi's Amar Jiban (1897) -- A literary staging of operatic interiorities: Binodini Dasi's Amar Katha (1912) -- The novelty of romancing in prose: Swarnakumari Debi Ghosal's Kahake (1898) -- 3 The Elegist, the Diaryist and the Traveloguer -- Elegiac landscape for the unruly body: Krupabai Satthianadhan's Saguna (1888) -- Journaling for an audience of sisters: Atiya Fyzee's Zamana-i-Tahsil (1921) -- All roads and words lead to the King: Dosebai Cowasjee Jessawalla's The Story of My Life (1911) -- Conclusion: The Poet and the Chorus -- Savitribai Phule's Kavya Phule (1854), with Sunity Devee, Parvatibai Athavale and Haimabati Sen -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Author.

A Genre of Her Own offers an alternative account of literary beginnings in modern India through a surprising range of self-fashioning by women in genres such as pamphlets, letters, travelogues, essays, autobiographies and novels. Paying close attention to style and intentionality, this study traces mixed affective notes of pride, despair, lament, nostalgia, anger, hope and celebration in texts written in Marathi, Bengali, Urdu and English. These include Savitribai Phule's Kavya Phule (1854), Tarabai Shinde's Stri-Purush Tulana (1882), Anandibai Joshee's letters (1883 - 1884), Rukhmabai's "Reply" (1887), Krupabai Satthianadhan's Saguna (1888), Rashsundari Debi's Amar Jiban (1897), Swarnakumari Debi Ghosal's Kahake (1898), Dosebai Cowasjee Jessawalla's The Story of My Life (1911), Binodini Dasi's Amar Katha (1912), and Atiya Fyzee's Zamana-i-Tahsil (1921). These writers crafted a full-fledged, introspective and formally sophisticated aesthetic in conversation with a normatively male literary milieu. In doing so, they overtly engaged with the centrality of writing, the dangers and secrecies involved, against an emerging proscenium of world literature. The narrative motifs encompass marriage and motherhood, domestic labour and caretaking, romance and sexuality, public service and intellectual prowess, religious quests and scrambles for livelihood, illness and aging, and often in the mode of wit, vigour and ingenuity.