5 Compelling Writers Reflecting On Postcolonial Literature From South Asia & Its Diaspora

As the critical voices of South Asian authors have become louder across the world in recent decades, with writers like V.S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, Rohinton Mistry and Anita Desai becoming household names, the study of these figures and their influential works have become increasingly prevalent. Postcolonial literature emerging from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh, as well as South Asia’s widespread diaspora, creatively broaches complex topics of colonial legacy as well as neo-colonialism, migration, dislocation, politics, gender and manifold histories, personal and shared. Offering greater insight on this diverse output, Something Curated highlights five contemporary scholars and writers exploring and building upon this important and fascinating literary tradition. 

Ruvani Ranasinha

Ruvani Ranasinha’s research interests are in postcolonial and contemporary literature and film, especially relating to South Asia and the South Asian diaspora with particular focus on gender, immigration, globalisation and the cultural representation of Muslim identity in the West. Having earned her PhD from the University of Oxford, Ranasinha has written three monographs on postcolonial and contemporary literature, the most recent of which examines a new generation of award-winning anglophone South Asian women novelists, destabilising the dominance of Indian fiction by focusing on female authors from Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh as well as India.

Namrata Poddar

Born in Kolkata, and raised in Mumbai, California-based Namrata Poddar writes fiction and nonfiction, as well as serving as Interviews Editor for Kweli journal where she curates a series called “Race, Power and Storytelling.” For two decades, her work has explored the intersection of race, class, gender, place and migration. Her scholarly work has focused on maritime sites, from boats and ports to beaches, and stories of global travel, empire, environmentalism, tourism and multiculturalism by Francophone South Asian diaspora from the Indian Ocean region. Poddar has written on postcolonial islands in English and in French for various anthologies on the Caribbean, the Pacific and the Indian Ocean.

Vijay Mishra

The growing international visibility of anglophone postcolonial literature has gone hand in hand with the popularity of the field’s criticism and theory in academia. Vijay Mishra’s scholarly work on Bollywood cinema, Indian devotional poetry, Indian diasporic literature, and postcolonial theory and criticism has contributed greatly to our understanding of this important area of writing. The academic, author and cultural theorist from Fiji is currently a professor at Murdoch University, Australia. Mishra’s works are extensively cited by scholars working in film, classical Indian studies, literary and cultural theories, religious studies and English literature, among other areas of learning. His influential books have been widely reviewed and are critically acclaimed worldwide.

Minoli Salgado

Minoli Salgado was born in Kuala Lumpur and grew up in Sri Lanka, South East Asia and England. She has written extensively on postcolonial literature and is the author of the critically acclaimed book, Writing Sri Lanka. In 2012 she was selected to represent Sri Lanka in London’s Poetry Parnassus, part of the Cultural Olympiad. She is best known for her novel of memory and loss, A Little Dust on the Eyes. It is set in the south coast of Sri Lanka and reflects upon the thousands of disappearances engendered by war and natural disaster. The book won the inaugural SI Leeds Literary Prize and was longlisted for the DSC Prize in South Asian Literature. She continues to explore, through both fiction and critical work, the ways in which writing provides a means of bearing witness to political violence and trauma.

Priya Basil

Born in London to Indian parents, Priya Basil’s family moved to East Africa when she was a year old; she grew up in Kenya, and later returned to the UK for university. In 2002 she moved to Berlin, where she still lives and works. Basil has published two novels, a novella and a book of narrative non-fiction, as well as numerous essays for various important publications. Her fiction, which weaves stories between continents and cultures, broaches recurring topics including identity, migration, art, mass surveillance, democracy, (neo-)colonialism, feminism and the European Union. Her latest book is Be My Guest, Reflections on Food, Community and the meaning of Generosity. Basil is also the co-founder of Authors for Peace, a political platform for writers and artists, established in 2010.



Feature image: 25th March 1980. Members of the ‘National Federation of Indian Women’ demonstrating outside the Supreme Court, New Delhi.