Reclaiming Voice and Agency in YA Diary Fiction: A Comparative Study of Agarwal and Sen Gupta

This paper examines how young adult historical fiction by Deepa Agarwal (The Teenage Diary of Nur Jahan) and Subhadra Sen Gupta (The Teenage Diary of Jahanara) reclaims the silenced voices of elite Mughal women through the intimate and introspective form of the diary. Drawing upon feminist literary theory, young adult (YA) literature studies, and diary fiction theory, the research explores how these texts portray adolescent female agency, emotional development, and quiet resistance within patriarchal court structures. The protagonists’ narratives, shaped through first-person diary entries, offer a compelling blend of historical imagination and youthful voice, granting readers access to the internal landscapes of Nur Jahan and Jahanara during their formative years. The study engages with the frameworks of Lorna Martens and Desiree Henderson on diary fiction, Roberta Trites’s theory of power and repression in adolescent literature, and Michael Cart’s perspectives on YA realism to examine how girlhood, identity, and emotional self-awareness are constructed in these narratives. By foregrounding introspection, private reflection, and interior voice, the fictional diaries serve as literary tools of feminist recovery—offering narrative presence to figures historically marginalized in male-centered chronicles. Ultimately, this paper contributes to broader conversations on historical fiction, gender representation, and narrative technique in YA literature, highlighting the diary form’s potential to bridge historical silence and reclaim subjectivity through emotionally resonant storytelling. Paper Type: Research Paper.