We invite chapter proposals for an edited scholarly collection that critically examines the religious dimensions of Indian diasporic women’s literature, with a specific focus on conversion, resistance, and cultural memory. This volume will explore how women writers from the Caribbean, South Africa, Fiji, Mauritius, and other sites of indenture engage with Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam, addressing the gendered and ideological tensions of community rupture, religious fidelity, and transgenerational transmission in diasporic settings.

Although the field has seen increasing attention to women’s narratives from these regions, the only existing anthology, Critical Perspectives on Indo-Caribbean Women’s Literature (Routledge, 2013), edited by Joy Mahabir and Mariam Pirbhai, offers a seminal and comprehensive view of the field, but does not focus specifically on religion or religious conversion. This proposed volume responds directly to that scholarly gap by centering faith, religious identity, and community resistance as its main analytical frameworks.

We seek essays that analyze conversion to Christianity—often framed as a path to education or scholarship—as a literary motif that reveals trauma, survival, loss, or reinvention. We are also interested in how diasporic women’s literature articulates resistance to conversion through the active preservation of ancestral faiths, oral traditions, and ritual practices. Particular attention is given to the Hindu katha tradition, Muslim hosay, food habits, wedding and other celebratory songs as modes of storytelling and resistance embedded in community life, especially among women.

Crucially, the volume also investigates how Hindu nationalism and Islamic revivalism, emerging strongly in early 20th-century India, influence diasporic religious consciousness in women’s writing. Drawing on frameworks such as Steven Vertovec’s The Hindu Diaspora: Comparative Patterns (Routledge, 2000), contributors may consider how transnational flows of ideology shape narratives of belonging, identity politics, and cultural purity across diasporic spaces. Writers such as Lakshmi Persaud (Caribbean), Shani Mootoo (Caribbean), Ryhaan Shah (Caribbean), Rajni Lallah (Mauritius), and Shalini Akhil (Fiji/Australia) explicitly navigate these tensions, moving between cultural heritage and religious imposition.

We welcome proposals that explore individual or comparative perspectives on novels, poetry, short fiction, memoir, and oral narratives that reflect these concerns.

Suggested Topics (include but are not limited to):

• Representations of conversion to Christianity in Indian diasporic women’s fiction
• Resistance to conversion through religious storytelling, memory, and community activities
• Katha, hosay, phagwa, matikor as literary and cultural repositories of resistance
• Role of folk songs, orality, and language in sustaining spiritual traditions
• Influence of Hindu nationalism and Islamic revivalism on diasporic identities
• Role of Arya Samaj and Hindu Mahasabha in identity formation
• The gendered impact of missionary education and Christian moral codes
• Caste, patriarchy, and religious hierarchy in plantation and post-indenture societies
• Queer subjectivities and religious identity formation
• Syncretism, dual faith, or dislocation in diasporic women’s narratives
• Churches, mandirs, and mosques as contested sites in fiction
• Literary responses to diasporic religious policing or orthodoxy
• Generational tensions around ancestral religion

Authors to Consider (Suggested)

• Caribbean: Lakshmi Persaud, Ramabai Espinet, Shani Mootoo, Mahadai Das, Jan Shinebourne, Oonya Kempadoo, Peggy Mohan, Ismene Krishnadath, Ryhaan Shah, Narmala Shewcharan, Rajandaye Ramkissoon-Chen, Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming
• Fiji: Mary Rokonadravu and Kavita Nandan 
• South Africa: Farida Karodia, Agnes Mauritius & Other Regions: Ananda Devi, Shenaz Patel, Lindsey Collen

Submission Guidelines:

Please submit a chapter proposal (250–300 words) and a short bio (100 words) to the editors at nandinicsen@bharati.du.ac.in or sahin.shah@gargi.du.ac.in by September 30, 2025.