Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Lines

John Thieme (University of East Anglia)

Ed. by John Thieme, University of East Anglia
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 10.3.1.03: Indian Writing and Culture: Post-colonial, 1947-present.
Vol. editors: Claire Gallien (Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3), Pavan Kumar Malreddy (J W Goethe University of Frankfurt), Delphine Munos (Université de Liège)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1988

Places

India (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Ghosh's second novel, The Shadow Lines (1988), focuses on a very particular personal history – the experience of a single family – as a microcosm for a broader national and international experience. The lives of the narrator's family have been irrevocably changed as a consequence of Bengal's Partition between India and Pakistan at the time of Independence and the subsequent experience of the East Pakistan Civil War of 1971, which led to the creation of Bangladesh. The “shadow lines” of the title are the borders that divide people and, as in all Ghosh's work, one of the main emphases is on the arbitrariness of cartographic demarcations. Towards the end, when members of the family are about to undertake a journey from …

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1046 words

Citation: Thieme, John. "The Shadow Lines". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 January 2003 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7704, accessed 22 November 2024.]

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