Marginal Narratives and the Question of Human Rights in Asian Pacific Literature

This book represents a significant intervention in human rights and its literary praxis, underscoring its paramount relevance and pressing urgency within the intricate tapestry of the Asian Pacific context. The book examines the local trauma endured within the complex geopolitical landscape of the Asian continent while also embracing a broader outlook that transcends geosocial boundaries. As a pivotal contribution to the discourse on Asian trauma studies, the chapters address a critical scholarly lacuna by delving into critical theoretical reflections and providing a robust epistemological foundation. The chapters look at human rights and trauma studies in a way that focuses not only on Europe. The volume fosters a deep comprehension of the historical and cultural facets shaping the Asian continent and its human rights challenges. The book is indispensable for educators, policymakers, and researchers engaged in the intricate realm of human rights and trauma studies.

Speaking for the Marginalised: Kaifi Azmi's Poetic Response to Human Rights.- Refugee Narratives from Northeast India: Restorying the Partition of India from the Periphery through the Lens of Human Rights.- Stories in Images: Mnemoculture and Human Rights Films on Cambodia and Vietnam.- The Human Rights of Refugees in Khaled Hosseini’s “Sea Prayer”.- ‘Jungle’ as a Site for Romance, Right and Resistance: A Critique to the Bhadrolok Narratives.- Borders and Boundaries: Re-situating The Tiger Claw in the Current Times.- The Thought of the Outside and the Outside of Thought: Remapping the Poetic Landscape of Shambhu Rakshit.- How They Play the Hunger: Bijon Bhattacharya’s “Nabanna” and the Great Bengal Famine of 1943.- Marginalised Lives in Assamese Literature: Saga of Loss and Longing in Assam’s Chars.- The Spectral as the Political: Dystopia, Myth, and Horror inPatrick Graham’s Ghoul.- Dead Horses Tell No Tales: Agrarian Revolts, Farmer Suicides and the Right to Cultivate in Neoliberal India.- Women and Wartime Sexual Violence: The Case of ‘Comfort Women’ and the ‘Virangana’.- Literary Activism and Sovereignty: Examining the Deconstruction of Statist Narratives on Rights and Welfare in the Poetry of Jacinta Kerketta.- Critique of the Universal Human Rights Discourse and the rights to structural justice in Feroz Rather’s The Night of Broken Glass.- Possibilities for reconciliation and conflict resolution: Reading Siddharth Deb’s Point of Return and Jahnavi Barua’s Undertow.- Inking Injury, Nurturing Remembrance: History, Trauma, and the Question of Forgiveness in The Garden of Evening Mists.- Negotiating Dalits in University Spaces, Violation of Human Rights: Portrayed through Yogesh Maitreya’s Flowers on the Grave of Caste.

Sk Sagir Ali is an assistant professor at the Department of English, Midnapore College, West Bengal. He earned his PhD from the Department of English at Jadavpur University. His areas of interest include South Asian fiction, religion, nationalism, literary theory,  and postcolonialism. His published works include the edited books Religion in South Asian Anglophone Literature: Traversing Resistance Margins and Extremism, Literature and Theory: Contemporary Signposts and Critical Surveys, War on Terror: Nation, Democracy, and Liberalisation, and Writing Disaster in South Asian Literature and Culture. His forthcoming monograph, Culture, Community, and Difference in Select Contemporary British Muslim Fictions will be published soon from Routledge. His articles appear in journals of repute like South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Journal of Global Postcolonial Studies from the University of Florida Press, etc. 

Avijit Basak is an assistant professor at the Department of English, Maharaja Manindra Chandra College, Kolkata, India. He primarily teaches postmodern texts, trauma literature, and marginal narratives, with a focus on history, theory, and philosophy. He is also interested in postcolonialism, memory studies, and cultural studies. He has been published by Routledge and Burdwan University Press, among others.