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25 mars 2022
- doi: 10.4000/books.pulm.14303
- isbn: 9782842697679
- eisbn: 9782367814087
https://www.openedition.org/12554 , info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
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Evelyne Hanquart-Turner, « ‘The kanyakumari tales’ or an Indian Decameron: Anita’s Nair Ladies Coupé », Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée, ID : 10.4000/books.pulm.14303
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In this ‘novel in parts’, her second major fictional work, Anita Nair rejuvenates the old ploy used by Chaucer and Boccacio before him, to turn it into a fairly realistic Indian set up. The symbol of the train, so often loaded with positive connotations in Indian fiction is once more an important instrument of modernity confronting traditional values. An enclosed space nevertheless providing a temporary escape from the pressure of social mixity, the ladies’ coupé is the focal space in which the heroine of the frame story can see the dilemma of her life-story evolve towards a resolution, as she shares in the life-experience of her travel companions. This provides the opportunity for humour and pathos in the multiple and diverse questioning of women’s condition in contemporary India proposed by Anita Nair’s percipient eye and ironic though warm pen.