In this paper, I describe the linguistic encoding of the conceptual category “emotion” in Swahili, focusing on analysis of the lexicon. After giving a brief overview of recent studies on lexical semantics, I will discuss and problematise the conceptual category of “emotion”. I will first describe the Swahili verbs which describe the semantic domain of perception, e.g. – sikia (hear); - ona (see); - hisi (touch), and show that, in some contexts, their meaning is often metonymically extended to “feel”. I will then present analysis of definitions and contexts of use of the Swahili terms for “emotion” which were relevant during data collection. Data were collected both through Swahili monolingual and bilingual dictionaries and through interviews with and questionnaires administered to native Swahili speakers in Dar es Salaam. The study shows that Swahili uses different terms in order to describe the different facets of the complex category of “emotion”. Swahili uses a general term hisia, a loanword from Arabic, to indicate both physical and abstract feelings. However, there are other Swahili terms which indicate different semantic facets of the concept “emotion”: mzuka (spirit), which is culturally linked to spirit possession and healing practices; mhemko (excitement), which can have different meanings according to the context of use, e.g. anxiety, strong desire, anger or love; and msisimko (thrill), which suggests specific reference to a bodily reaction, e.g. to fear, cold or excitement.
{"title":"The terms for “emotion” in Swahili: a lexical analysis based on interviews with native speakers","authors":"R. Tramutoli","doi":"10.13135/1825-263X/3731","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13135/1825-263X/3731","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, I describe the linguistic encoding of the conceptual category “emotion” in Swahili, focusing on analysis of the lexicon. After giving a brief overview of recent studies on lexical semantics, I will discuss and problematise the conceptual category of “emotion”. I will first describe the Swahili verbs which describe the semantic domain of perception, e.g. – sikia (hear); - ona (see); - hisi (touch), and show that, in some contexts, their meaning is often metonymically extended to “feel”. I will then present analysis of definitions and contexts of use of the Swahili terms for “emotion” which were relevant during data collection. Data were collected both through Swahili monolingual and bilingual dictionaries and through interviews with and questionnaires administered to native Swahili speakers in Dar es Salaam. The study shows that Swahili uses different terms in order to describe the different facets of the complex category of “emotion”. Swahili uses a general term hisia, a loanword from Arabic, to indicate both physical and abstract feelings. However, there are other Swahili terms which indicate different semantic facets of the concept “emotion”: mzuka (spirit), which is culturally linked to spirit possession and healing practices; mhemko (excitement), which can have different meanings according to the context of use, e.g. anxiety, strong desire, anger or love; and msisimko (thrill), which suggests specific reference to a bodily reaction, e.g. to fear, cold or excitement.","PeriodicalId":37635,"journal":{"name":"Kervan","volume":"23 1","pages":"7-27"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44988737","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The world of Swahili contemporary poetry, as remarked by M. M. Mulokozi and T. S. Y. Sengo (1995: 22), is amazingly broad, given the progressive diffusion of the Swahili language in the course of the last two centuries, from the East African coast to the continental regions of Eastern and Central Africa. Accordingly, authors of Swahili poetic texts can also be found in the “periphery” of the Swahilophone area, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, where this language has become the medium of modern songs and written poetry in many areas, although the latter is hardly visible in a context where creative writing is predominantly expressed in French. In the present contribution, after an introduction on Swahili poetry in the DRC and on the linguistic complexity of the Swahilophone environment of Katanga, and particularly of its main city, Lubumbashi, we will present some (so far unpublished) poems by Patrick Mudekereza, art curator and director of the cultural centre WAZA, together with a first analysis of his verses, whose poetics emerges from plurilingualism and corporality.
正如M. M. mullokozi和T. S. Y. Sengo(1995: 22)所言，斯瓦希里当代诗歌的世界是惊人的广泛，因为在过去的两个世纪里，斯瓦希里语从东非海岸到东非和中非大陆地区逐渐传播开来。因此，斯瓦希里语诗歌文本的作者也可以在斯瓦希里语地区的“外围”找到，例如刚果民主共和国，在那里，这种语言已成为许多地区现代歌曲和书面诗歌的媒介，尽管后者在创造性写作主要以法语表达的背景下几乎看不到。在介绍了刚果民主共和国的斯瓦希里语诗歌，以及加丹加省斯瓦希里语环境的语言复杂性，特别是其主要城市卢本巴希之后，我们将介绍Patrick Mudekereza(艺术策展人和文化中心WAZA主任)的一些(迄今尚未发表的)诗歌，以及对他的诗歌的首次分析，他的诗学来自多语言和形体。
{"title":"Poesia swahili in Katanga. Multilinguismo e corporalità nei versi di Patrick Mudekereza","authors":"F. Aiello, Roberto Gaudioso","doi":"10.13135/1825-263X/3360","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13135/1825-263X/3360","url":null,"abstract":"The world of Swahili contemporary poetry, as remarked by M. M. Mulokozi and T. S. Y. Sengo (1995: 22), is amazingly broad, given the progressive diffusion of the Swahili language in the course of the last two centuries, from the East African coast to the continental regions of Eastern and Central Africa. Accordingly, authors of Swahili poetic texts can also be found in the “periphery” of the Swahilophone area, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, where this language has become the medium of modern songs and written poetry in many areas, although the latter is hardly visible in a context where creative writing is predominantly expressed in French. In the present contribution, after an introduction on Swahili poetry in the DRC and on the linguistic complexity of the Swahilophone environment of Katanga, and particularly of its main city, Lubumbashi, we will present some (so far unpublished) poems by Patrick Mudekereza, art curator and director of the cultural centre WAZA, together with a first analysis of his verses, whose poetics emerges from plurilingualism and corporality.","PeriodicalId":37635,"journal":{"name":"Kervan","volume":"23 1","pages":"49-73"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46317474","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Human impact on natural environment has seriously increased over the last few centuries. However, it is only from the mid-twentieth century that a greater sensitivity has developed around environmental problems. With an eye on the development of the African environmentalism, the paper considers the reaction of some African writers and their efforts towards the conservation of physical environment and climate change through their literary works as narrative and poetry genres.
{"title":"Face to Face with the Natural Environment: A Look at African Literature","authors":"Graziella Acquaviva, Cecilia Mignanti","doi":"10.13135/1825-263X/3758","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13135/1825-263X/3758","url":null,"abstract":"Human impact on natural environment has seriously increased over the last few centuries. However, it is only from the mid-twentieth century that a greater sensitivity has developed around environmental problems. With an eye on the development of the African environmentalism, the paper considers the reaction of some African writers and their efforts towards the conservation of physical environment and climate change through their literary works as narrative and poetry genres.","PeriodicalId":37635,"journal":{"name":"Kervan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43190095","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Kehinde Jonathan Oyedeji, O. Alhassan, Austin Ayodele, Olutade Akinniyi Ogunrinde
Culture, society and development are the three most pertinent factors associated with every human civilization; however, they are distinctive and relative. Thus, development exists distinctively in every society. Today, globalization has promoted and consolidated democracy – ‘liberal democracy’ – almost across the globe as the single ideology and the best form of government that must be practised for the protection of individuals’ fundamental human rights. However, the adoption of liberal democracy varies and continues to create a dichotomous marginality between the ‘capitalist West’ and the so-called developing nations with respect to its results. The pertinent questions are: what is the relevance of liberal democracy to Third World development? How important are the desirability, feasibility, conditions and possibilities of liberal democracy for a country where democracy is alien to its political culture? And how is the cultural and historical backdrop of the developing world different from that of the West? We will explore the importance of political clientelism in African political development and look beyond liberal democracy for an African-like democracy. This essay aims to contribute to our collaborative intellectual efforts by looking at the existence of development in human cultural patterns, the historical perspective of liberal democracy, its meaning, its validity, its relationship to African development, neo-colonialism and the global clientelistic structure for continuous dependency, as well as political clientelism importance to African development; by reconstructing the ontological notion of development to the Third World nations as envelopment- overt control of the progress of Third World nations by Global West and by suggesting a possible alternative for a sustainable development.
{"title":"Political Clientelism, Political Culture and Development in Africa","authors":"Kehinde Jonathan Oyedeji, O. Alhassan, Austin Ayodele, Olutade Akinniyi Ogunrinde","doi":"10.13135/1825-263X/3610","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13135/1825-263X/3610","url":null,"abstract":"Culture, society and development are the three most pertinent factors associated with every human civilization; however, they are distinctive and relative. Thus, development exists distinctively in every society. Today, globalization has promoted and consolidated democracy – ‘liberal democracy’ – almost across the globe as the single ideology and the best form of government that must be practised for the protection of individuals’ fundamental human rights. However, the adoption of liberal democracy varies and continues to create a dichotomous marginality between the ‘capitalist West’ and the so-called developing nations with respect to its results. The pertinent questions are: what is the relevance of liberal democracy to Third World development? How important are the desirability, feasibility, conditions and possibilities of liberal democracy for a country where democracy is alien to its political culture? And how is the cultural and historical backdrop of the developing world different from that of the West? We will explore the importance of political clientelism in African political development and look beyond liberal democracy for an African-like democracy. This essay aims to contribute to our collaborative intellectual efforts by looking at the existence of development in human cultural patterns, the historical perspective of liberal democracy, its meaning, its validity, its relationship to African development, neo-colonialism and the global clientelistic structure for continuous dependency, as well as political clientelism importance to African development; by reconstructing the ontological notion of development to the Third World nations as envelopment- overt control of the progress of Third World nations by Global West and by suggesting a possible alternative for a sustainable development.","PeriodicalId":37635,"journal":{"name":"Kervan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47550698","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Thamar y Amnón di Federico García Lorca: una traduzione","authors":"Lia Ogno","doi":"10.13135/1825-263X/3650","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13135/1825-263X/3650","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37635,"journal":{"name":"Kervan","volume":"23 1","pages":"175-183"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48938846","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This volume is to wish Pinuccia Caracchi a happy sixty-seventh birthday. My present is the Italian translation of the poem “Dostī” by Harivaṃś Rāy Baccan.
{"title":"Dūjī na koy: alla mia amica e maestra Pinuccia Caracchi","authors":"A. Consolaro","doi":"10.13135/1825-263X/3649","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13135/1825-263X/3649","url":null,"abstract":"This volume is to wish Pinuccia Caracchi a happy sixty-seventh birthday. My present is the Italian translation of the poem “Dostī” by Harivaṃś Rāy Baccan.","PeriodicalId":37635,"journal":{"name":"Kervan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42101389","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hanif Kureishi’s The Last Word (2014) is a fictional work that depicts the effort of a young journalist from London, Harry, to write the biography of a very famous author of Indian origin, Mamoon, who now lives in the quiet English countryside. Starting from the very beginning, with its symbolic title, the novel is built upon a metatextual framework as it discusses the power of words and narratives in a literary context. In particular, the thematic coordinates of the text incessantly creates intersections between the conceptual domain of writing, which includes its peripheral subdomains such as researching, remembering, but also the manipulation and revision of facts and stories. The overall effect is to hybridise the fields of narrative, (fictional) biography and authorship, and deliberately challenge the reader in the construction of meaning and the attribution of reliability to characters. Therefore, the governing megametaphor living is writing and its possible micro-articulations emerge as a network of rhetorical devices of representation and conceptualisation of life experience through the practice of writing and communicating. This paper intends to investigate the range of these metaphorical renditions in the novel, and their power to symbolically encapsulate lives in words (Mamoon’s life recorded and/or reinvented through words). The central argument is that such structures superficially serve to mirror reality and experience, blending the macro-concepts of writing and living, but in reality they are also endowed with the possibility to set off a sequence of ambiguities, given their ideological potential (i.e. biography writing as a process of adjustment and interpretation of facts in spite of claims of faithfulness). As readers are asked to apply a kind of “double vision” (Gavins 2007) to the text, various text worlds are generated, bringing to light the language continuum connecting the coterminous spaces of fiction and non-fiction and the key role of metaphor as a tool to approach the self and the other, and human existence at large. The purpose of this article is twofold, namely a) to take into account various metaphoric expressions originating from the central megametaphor in select extracts from the novel and b) to provide a preliminary examination of their ideological effects. Methodologically I follow an interdisciplinary frame that draws from stylistics, postcolonial discourse, biography studies and literary studies (Adami 2006; Ashcroft 2009; Bradford 1997; Browse 2016; Douthwaite 2000; Kovecses 2000, 2002; Stockwell 2009; Sorlin 2014).
{"title":"Living is Writing: Metaphors of representation in Hanif Kureishi’s The Last Word","authors":"E. Adami","doi":"10.13135/1825-263X/3613","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13135/1825-263X/3613","url":null,"abstract":"Hanif Kureishi’s The Last Word (2014) is a fictional work that depicts the effort of a young journalist from London, Harry, to write the biography of a very famous author of Indian origin, Mamoon, who now lives in the quiet English countryside. Starting from the very beginning, with its symbolic title, the novel is built upon a metatextual framework as it discusses the power of words and narratives in a literary context. In particular, the thematic coordinates of the text incessantly creates intersections between the conceptual domain of writing, which includes its peripheral subdomains such as researching, remembering, but also the manipulation and revision of facts and stories. The overall effect is to hybridise the fields of narrative, (fictional) biography and authorship, and deliberately challenge the reader in the construction of meaning and the attribution of reliability to characters. Therefore, the governing megametaphor living is writing and its possible micro-articulations emerge as a network of rhetorical devices of representation and conceptualisation of life experience through the practice of writing and communicating. This paper intends to investigate the range of these metaphorical renditions in the novel, and their power to symbolically encapsulate lives in words (Mamoon’s life recorded and/or reinvented through words). The central argument is that such structures superficially serve to mirror reality and experience, blending the macro-concepts of writing and living, but in reality they are also endowed with the possibility to set off a sequence of ambiguities, given their ideological potential (i.e. biography writing as a process of adjustment and interpretation of facts in spite of claims of faithfulness). As readers are asked to apply a kind of “double vision” (Gavins 2007) to the text, various text worlds are generated, bringing to light the language continuum connecting the coterminous spaces of fiction and non-fiction and the key role of metaphor as a tool to approach the self and the other, and human existence at large. The purpose of this article is twofold, namely a) to take into account various metaphoric expressions originating from the central megametaphor in select extracts from the novel and b) to provide a preliminary examination of their ideological effects. Methodologically I follow an interdisciplinary frame that draws from stylistics, postcolonial discourse, biography studies and literary studies (Adami 2006; Ashcroft 2009; Bradford 1997; Browse 2016; Douthwaite 2000; Kovecses 2000, 2002; Stockwell 2009; Sorlin 2014).","PeriodicalId":37635,"journal":{"name":"Kervan","volume":"23 1","pages":"39-51"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48621844","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sull’etimologia del termine tarbusc “fez”","authors":"F. Pennacchietti","doi":"10.13135/1825-263X/3626","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13135/1825-263X/3626","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37635,"journal":{"name":"Kervan","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66233714","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Since ancient time until today, the image of the hero has influenced literary works universally. The “hero” becomes mythical only after his death, and through forms of remembrance that can be realized in other literary productions in which his figure is re-create and transmitted through fictitious characters. The central focus of my paper is to examine, within archetypal theories on myth and “hero”, the great figures of two Swahili warriors, namelyLiongo Fumo, one of the greatest warrior-hero figures of the Swahili oral tradition, and the chief Mkwawa of the Hehe people, who fought against the German rule in the former Tanganyka, whose deeds have been reinvented and described in modern written literature. Both Liongo Fumo and Mkwawa have acquired the status of mythical warriors, and as other East African heroes, they inspired poets and writers becoming symbols of bravery and national consciousness to which the historical and cultural memory of old and new generations refer. Despite the importance given to the figure of the two great heroes, part of my work has been dedicated to the presentation of those who can be defined as ‘minor heroes’, who nevertheless represent a way of generational change to look at literature as to a bridge that combines tradition and modernity through historical and mythical memory.
{"title":"More than just warriors: Mythical and archetypal images of the hero in Swahili literature","authors":"Graziella Acquaviva","doi":"10.13135/1825-263X/3612","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13135/1825-263X/3612","url":null,"abstract":"Since ancient time until today, the image of the hero has influenced literary works universally. The “hero” becomes mythical only after his death, and through forms of remembrance that can be realized in other literary productions in which his figure is re-create and transmitted through fictitious characters. The central focus of my paper is to examine, within archetypal theories on myth and “hero”, the great figures of two Swahili warriors, namelyLiongo Fumo, one of the greatest warrior-hero figures of the Swahili oral tradition, and the chief Mkwawa of the Hehe people, who fought against the German rule in the former Tanganyka, whose deeds have been reinvented and described in modern written literature. Both Liongo Fumo and Mkwawa have acquired the status of mythical warriors, and as other East African heroes, they inspired poets and writers becoming symbols of bravery and national consciousness to which the historical and cultural memory of old and new generations refer. Despite the importance given to the figure of the two great heroes, part of my work has been dedicated to the presentation of those who can be defined as ‘minor heroes’, who nevertheless represent a way of generational change to look at literature as to a bridge that combines tradition and modernity through historical and mythical memory.","PeriodicalId":37635,"journal":{"name":"Kervan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45896246","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Do murdoṁ ke lie guldastā ( A bunch of flowers for two corpses ) is a novel by Surendra Varmā, published for the first time in 1998. It is a sort of reversed Bildungsroman, with a highly theatrical flavor, still almost unknown among Western readers and largely overlooked by Hindi scholars. With this paper I aim at investigating two specific aspects of the text that may encourage reflections on a planetary scale: the deconstruction of conventional gender roles and the presence of intertextual irony. After introducing the plot and the main characters — not only the corpses mentioned in the title, but also the city of Mumbai where most of the events take place — I will firstly linger over the pictures of masculinity and femininity provided by the author, and the beneath problematization of conventional gender roles. As regards this, I argue that Surendra Varmā’s novel should be read as a possible counterpart of Hindi feminist writing, as it represents a different perspective from which to observe the transformations of gender roles and of the relationships between men and women. Subsequently, I will show how the author plays with intertextuality, introducing ironic and often desecrating connections between Itihāsa (particularly the Mahābhārata ) and his characters’ vicissitudes. Both these aspects of the novel are extremely thought-provoking and allow to link Varmā’s work to a conspicuous part of contemporary planetary literature.
{"title":"Do murdoṁ ke lie guldastā: Ritratti di genere e gioco intertestuale nella prosa di Surendra Varmā","authors":"Veronica Ghirardi","doi":"10.13135/1825-263X/3630","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13135/1825-263X/3630","url":null,"abstract":"Do murdoṁ ke lie guldastā ( A bunch of flowers for two corpses ) is a novel by Surendra Varmā, published for the first time in 1998. It is a sort of reversed Bildungsroman, with a highly theatrical flavor, still almost unknown among Western readers and largely overlooked by Hindi scholars. With this paper I aim at investigating two specific aspects of the text that may encourage reflections on a planetary scale: the deconstruction of conventional gender roles and the presence of intertextual irony. After introducing the plot and the main characters — not only the corpses mentioned in the title, but also the city of Mumbai where most of the events take place — I will firstly linger over the pictures of masculinity and femininity provided by the author, and the beneath problematization of conventional gender roles. As regards this, I argue that Surendra Varmā’s novel should be read as a possible counterpart of Hindi feminist writing, as it represents a different perspective from which to observe the transformations of gender roles and of the relationships between men and women. Subsequently, I will show how the author plays with intertextuality, introducing ironic and often desecrating connections between Itihāsa (particularly the Mahābhārata ) and his characters’ vicissitudes. Both these aspects of the novel are extremely thought-provoking and allow to link Varmā’s work to a conspicuous part of contemporary planetary literature.","PeriodicalId":37635,"journal":{"name":"Kervan","volume":"23 1","pages":"97-113"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45321965","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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