Traditional Hindu Elements in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss

Abstract

Il seguente articolo offre un’interpretazione indologica del romanzo The Inheritance of Loss ad opera di Kiran Desai, analizzando atteggiamenti e dinamiche che risultano ancora più significativi se filtrati attraverso l’etica induista. Alcuni tra i principi induisti più evidenti che si celano nella storia sono il peccato del samudrayana connesso al viaggio oltreoceano; la disattenzione nei confronti del proprio dharma, causa questa della sventura di alcuni personaggi; l’equilibrio esistenziale degli opposti; il monte mitologico Meru simbolizzato dal monte Kanchenjunga; il velo di Maya suggerito dalla costante presenza della nebbia.

DOI: 10.17456/SIMPLE-106

Bibliografia

Balanescu, Olivia. 2010. We Must Be Displaced to Be Replaced: Issues of Geographical Displacement and Interior Exile. Gender Studies, 1, 9: 187-197.

Barton, Laura. 2006.A Passage from India. The Guardian, October 12, http://www.theguardian. com/books/2006/oct/12/bookerprize2006.thebookerprize (consulted on 07/02/2015).

Cavaliere, Stefania. 2016. Eating and Fasting to Liberate the Mind: Some Remarks on the Theme of Food in Keśavdās’ Vijñānagītā. Cinzia Pieruccini & Paola M. Rossi eds. A World of Nourishment: Reflections on Food in Indian Culture. Milan: Ledizioni: 215-229.

Concilio, Carmen. 2010. From West Bengal to New York: The Global Novels of Jhumpa Lahiri and Kiran Desai. Andrea Carosso ed. Urban Cultures of/in the United States: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Bern: Peter Lang, 87-119.

Desai, Kiran. 2006. The Inheritance of Loss. London: Penguin Books.

Didur, Jill. 2011. Cultivating Community: Counterlandscaping in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss. Elizabeth DeLoughrey & George B. Handley eds. Postcolonial Ecologies: Litera- tures of the Environment. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 43-61.

Flood, Gavin. 1996. An Introduction to Hinduism. London: Cambridge University Press. Ganguli, Kisari Mohan. 1883-1896. The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Translated into English Prose. Calcutta: Bharata Press.

Griffith, Ralph T. H. 1895-1896. The Hymns of the Atharvaveda. Varanasi: E. J. Lazarus & Company.

Grossato, Alessandro (a cura di) 2010. Alcuni aspetti simbolici e morfologici del Monte Meru. La montagna cosmica. Milano: Medusa, 91-97.

Jay, Paul. 2010. Global Matters: The Transnational Turn in Literary Studies. Ithaca-London: Cornell.

Jayaraman, Uma. 2011. John Peter Peterson or Jemubhai Popatlal Patel? The ‘Uncanny’ Dou- bleness and ‘Cracking’ of Identity in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss. Asiatic, 5, 1: 54-68. Keita, Keya. 2008. Crossing the Ocean. Hinduism Today, (July-August-September) 18-37.

Klostermaier, Klaus K. 2001. Hindu Writings: A Short Introduction to the Major Sources. Oxford: Oneworld.

Klostermaier, Klaus K. 2001. Hinduism: A Short History. Oxford: Oneworld.

Lipner, Julius J. 1994. Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. Abingdon: Routledge.

Nazneem, Khan & Ravi Jauhari. 2011. Aspects of Immigration and Diasporic Sensibility in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss. Lapis Lazuli – An International Literary Journal, 1, 1: 1-8.

Oyunn, Hestetun. 2010. Migration and Self-Transformation in Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine and Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss. Johanna C. Kardux & Doris Einsiedel eds. Moving Migration: Narrative Transformations in Asian American Literature. Münster: Lit., 81-94.

Pravin, Tatugade Ashwini. 2010. From Local to Global: A Reading of Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss. Wizcraft Journal of Language and Literature, 1, 1: 101-105.

Ratti, Manav. 2013. The Postsecular Imagination: Postcolonialism, Religion and Literature. London-New York: Routledge.

Rizvi, Nuzhat F. 2014. Conflicts of Globalization: A Study of Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss. IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 1, 5: 16-19.

Rumnit, Kaur. 2012. Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss: A Study of Gyan’s Identity Crisis. International Journal of Research in Economics & Social Sciences, 2, 6: 14-36.

Shands, Kerstin W. 2011. Hyperfabula of Gains and Losses: Immanent and Trascendent Nar- rative Perspectives in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss. Rita Christian & Judith Misrahi-Barak eds. India and the Diasporic Imagination/L’Inde et l’Imagination Diasporique. Montpelier: Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée, 165-178.

Smriti, Daniel. 2007. Kiran Desai: The Inheritance of Loss. The Sunday Times – Sri Lanka, January 21, https://smritidaniel.com/2011/10/17/in-conversation-with-kiran-desai/ (consult- ed on 15/06/2015).

Spielman, David Wallace. 2010. Solid Knowledge and Contradictions in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, 51, 1: 74-89.

Thakur, A. K. 2010. Loss of Human Values in The Inheritance of Loss. Journal of Literature, Cul- ture and Media Studies, 2: 296-303.