Debating Gender Discrimination and Violence in Githa Hariharan's The Thousand Faces of Night

Abstract

Githa Hariharan belongs to the new generation of Indian writers who have earned greater visibility and readership for Indian English Literature. As a writer she is preoccupied with human condition which to her is the pre-requisite and the essence of creative writing in general and of literature in particular. Apparently, she chooses a small space for almost all her novels but endeavors to enlarge the limited space to such an extent that it becomes an elaborate presentation of human condition. Hariharan believes in inclusiveness, which extends and broadens an individual's social horizon. She thinks that writers have a socio‑political responsibility as well. They are not rarefied creatures, above or at a tangent from the world around. In her view, it is completely ridiculous to expect writers to be uninvolved. Writers are citizens like everyone else and they should be socially and politically engaged, they have a special responsibility to discharge—to reveal truths that are fundamentally related to human condition. Like almost all distinguished writers of Indian English Literature, Hariharan too is aware of the controversy concerning the writing in English and writing in Indian languages. Speaking about the ticklish issue of 'authenticity' in Indian English Literature in general and in her own writing in particular, she does not conceal her mixed feelings of indignation and disgust. Hariharan thinks that within India the official line on representation seems too often get reduced to writing in English versus other Indian languages.