Intertextual <em>Identittis</em>? Sanyal's Ambiguous Acts of Appropriation

Abstract

In 2021, Mithu Sanyal published her novel Identitti, which marked the author's turn to fictional formats and her debut as a novelist. Acclaimed by critics, feuilleton, and readers alike, Identitti simultaneously commits to and comments on the "boom of identity literatur" evoked in this special edition of Genealogy+Critique. This article argues that Sanyal's novel performs on the formal level what its story revolves around: ambiguous acts of appropriation. By scrutinizing concepts such as linear "genealogy" on the level of the content and defined "genre" on the level of the form, Identitti transgresses limits on various levels. With artistic strategies such as intertextual appropriation, the layering of different languages and linguistic registers, active and incessant (mis-)quotation, incorporation of different media, as well as the fictionalization of factual people and text, Sanyal's Identitti experiments along the possibility of "disingenuous," appropriated, adopted, and anti-genealogical aesthetics.