Ananda Devi: Feminism, Narration, and Polyphony by Ritu Tyagi (review)

An active researcher on feminist theory and identity construction within the growing framework of Mauritian literature and culture, Ritu Tyagi’s decade long research trajectory has fostered her recent publication featuring Ananda Devi, one of the most eminent Francophone writers of the Indian Ocean. Tyagi’s work surveys Devi’s multifaceted approach to narrative. At the core of the text is the concept that Devi practices a variety of narrative strategies whilst resisting the dominant structure of a particularly well-versed androcentric narrative construction. Consequently, Tyagi argues that Devi creates a notion of identity that is multiple and exempt of insularity. Tyagi’s study is strengthened with references to foundational works on Devi by scholars from Françoise Lionnet to Patrick Sultan and provides a central examination of an area of growing interest within French and Francophone studies.

At the heart of Tyagi’s argument is an examination of the ways in which Devi’s creative works produce strategies that “intervene in the dominant, androcentric narrative” (p. 173). Tyagi is receptive to Devi’s desire to create “a rich array of possibilities for feminine silence to voice itself” (p. 173). Comprising three comprehensive chapters, Tyagi’s text offers readers an extensive overview of the fluctuating degrees of emotion, from misery and pain to optimism and liberation, ongoing in Devi’s creative works.

Opening with romance, marriage, and feminine desire, the first chapter of Tyagi’s analysis rereads Devi’s married narrators as women freeing themselves from their conjugal plots and aligning themselves to what theorist Susan Lanser refers to as “plotlessness” (p. 24). Through this plotlessness, which “allows the narratee to contribute in the construction of the narrative,” Devi’s texts are “characterized by a ‘feminine’ desire to communicate” (pp. 24, 80). Tyagi further discusses Devi’s narrative resistance to marriage by proposing “relationships that challenge heterosexuality as the only possibility and present[ing] other alternatives for women” (p. 23). The concept of the cyclical—a deviation from the traditional linear progression of narrative—is further explored in chapter two when Tyagi discusses the “influence of Indian epics and folktales” (p. 81); a pluritemporality, according to Tyagi, that allows Devi to bring “multiple voices to join in the act of narration, which facilitates the expression of marginalized voices through multisubjectivity” (pp. 117–18). Tyagi reiterates that narration for Devi is more of a collaboration, “not simply the recounting of a single protagonist’s tale” (p. 24). In the final chapter, Tyagi explores Devi’s non-Western writing techniques, such as her ability to merge “Western reality with the magic of the Orient [which] allows her characters accessibility to extra-real and magical spaces” (p. 24). Tyagi enters with confidence the interiority of magical realism, “bringing myths and folktales to the contemporary world” without hesitation, and she reiterates that through rewriting of the ancient, Devi permits “feminine potential [to be] excavated from the patriarchal myths that have limited women to restricted roles for ages” (p. 171). Tyagi explains in detail how the magical become “tools for silenced women . . . where their voices can be heard and understood” (p. 24). In this concluding chapter Tyagi examines the evolution of Devi’s oeuvre over the span of forty years and accentuates her take on extreme violence in her 2009 novel Le sari vert (The green sari). As Tyagi outlines, “each new work is another building block added on to the existing edifice that brings a new dimension and a fresh perspective” (p. 177).

Clearly, Tyagi contributes meaningfully to the field of Francophone Studies, as this publication is the first book-length critical study of Devi’s prose. Tyagi’s work paves the way for ongoing research and should be recommended to scholars both of Francophone culture and literature, as well as those focusing on the evolving field of feminist narratology.