![]() ![]() There are many writers I read very closely, but J.M. While Shalini suffers a great deal of gendered violence, there are different forces creating her world. ![]() Atwood explores a gendered dystopia, something I would not presume to write. Shalini searches for Leila in a very different context, one that is shaped by a number of the most urgent concerns of Indian society. The Handmaid’s Tale, but to me there are important differences in the approach and effect of the books. I am a great admirer of Margaret Atwood and The Handmaid’s Tale a significant influence, and what other books or writers influenced Leila? ![]() The Handmaid’s Tale as a likely influence on Leila. ![]() Excerpts from an email interview.Ī number of reviewers have cited Margaret Atwood’s The novel follows Shalini’s quest for Leila, in a city where individuality, love, and the pursuit of happiness are despised. The consequences of her rebellion are appalling: her husband is murdered, and her daughter, Leila, kidnapped. Shalini, the novel’s narrator, is devoted to the city’s lost cosmopolitanism, and commits the ultimate crime of marrying a Muslim man. Leila, is set in a near-future Indian city, with elements of both Delhi and Mumbai, in which cosmopolitanism has yielded to an extreme form of tribalism in which people live in caste or religious ghettoes, and are forced to rigidly follow the rules of their community. ![]()
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