Affiliation:
1. Christ University, India
Abstract
Prayaag Akbar's debut novel Leila (2017) is a compendium of dystopian feminism, misogyny, religious and casteist devaluation, and a post-apocalyptic portrayal of a futuristic urban India that is subjugated by a totalitarian government. This chapter aims to examine the narrative ambiguity and the unresolved problem of narrative reliability in the novel by exploring the cognitive process of the female protagonist Shalini in the context of the art of her storytelling. It is argued that the narrative pattern in this dystopian novel is mainly non-linear in spatial terms which creates a fragmented and patchy experience of reading. Using a spatial-psychoanalytical approach, the study reveals that the narrative is defied by the mental projection of the city-space and city as a gendered space.
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