Essaying Solidarity: “Kaamraid” Roy and the Politics of Representation

This essay explores the figure of the writer-activist as a specific figure for our times. In “Walking with the Comrades,” Arundhati Roy transforms the genre of the essay by hitching it to a more expansive postcolonial and internationalist tradition that breaks through the conventions of the properly...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Modern fiction studies 2021-07, Vol.67 (2), p.366-389
Main Author:	Varma, Rashmi
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Absurdism Activists Aesthetics Anglophones Authenticity Authorship Capitalism Celebrities Cosmopolitanism Essays Forests Genre Heroism & heroes Hunger strikes Ideology Literary criticism Literary influences Logic Multiculturalism & pluralism Neoliberalism Nonviolence Novels Pandemics Political activism Politics Postcolonialism Power Violence Writers Writing
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Summary:	This essay explores the figure of the writer-activist as a specific figure for our times. In “Walking with the Comrades,” Arundhati Roy transforms the genre of the essay by hitching it to a more expansive postcolonial and internationalist tradition that breaks through the conventions of the properly English essay. Roy’s generic restlessness speaks to her alignment with grassroots movements for social justice and opens up important questions about the politics of representation that has dominated Anglophone postcolonial criticism. This essay concludes by pointing to the urgency of reformulating solidarity beyond the politics of representation.
ISSN:	0026-7724 1080-658X 1080-658X