French Literature Reviews - 2026
Anne Castaing, Littératures de la Partition de l’Inde (1947-2013). Les témoignages paradoxaux
Francophone and Oral Literatures
Anne Castaing
Littératures de la Partition de l’Inde (1947-2013). Les témoignages paradoxaux
Paris, Classiques Garnier, coll. « Perspectives comparatistes », n° 153, 2025.
This study on the literature of the 1947 Partition of India examines the profound impacts of this defining event in the history of India and South Asia. Drawing on short stories, novels, and poems as "paradoxical testimonies," the book explores the fruitful dialogue between literature and history in bearing witness to mass violence and displacement.
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Also available in a hardcover edition - EAN 9782406187936 - priced at 86 EUR.
The 1947 Partition of British India remains a foundational trauma in the modern history of South Asia, resulting in unprecedented mass violence, demographic displacement, and the redrawing of national borders. Anne Castaing examines how writers from the region have engaged with this historical fracture through fiction and poetry. By analyzing diverse narratives as paradoxical testimonies, the study highlights the unique capacity of literature to articulate experiences of loss, exile, and division that official historical records often struggle to fully capture or comprehend.
This scholarly monograph contributes to comparative literature and postcolonial studies by investigating the complex intersection of artistic creation and historical trauma. It will prove particularly valuable to researchers, students, and readers interested in South Asian literature, memory studies, and the ethical dimensions of aesthetic representation. Through careful close readings, the book illuminates how narrative forms enable writers to transmit the enduring echoes of the Partition across generations while questioning the boundaries between testimony, history, and imagination.