Author(s): Arpita Chakrabarti

Abstract: This paper situates Bashabi Fraser, a British South Asian poet, within the larger domain of “Women in Literature”. I would argue that Bashabi Fraser, who is of Indian origin and whose current location is in Edinburgh, Scotland, is not just a mere diasporic writer. Her poetic oeuvre offers a unique lebenswelt of the “globizen” (global citizen). Bashabi describes herself as the ‘daughter of the East’ who dis-homes her nationalist anchorage to encounter the larger world and her poetic universe unfolds through this complex encounter between her ‘two worlds’, her home and the larger world. As a woman writer, she upholds the ideology of transnationality or the feminine trans-self that deflates the patriarchal concepts of bordering, control, occupation and regimentation. Rather than being border-restrictive, the linkages, interdependencies, connections, contradictions, and discontinuities of gender experiences in multiple contexts are highlighted in Bashabi Fraser’s writings.

Keywords: bordering, interconnectedness, feminine, transnationality, trans-self.

Article Info: Received: 11 Dec 2021; Received in revised form: 06 Feb 2022; Accepted: 15 Feb 2022; Available online: 24 Feb 2022

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.71.41