Re-reading Women Writing in India as a Feminist Anthological Archive

Rather than treating Susie Tharu and K. Lalita's Women Writing in India as a repository of feminist texts, this article examines the anthology as a paratextual archive that actively produces the category of the "Indian woman writer." Drawing on Gérard Genette's theory of paratexts, anthology studies, and contemporary debates on translation and canon formation, the article argues that the anthology's introductions, editorial notes, selection principles, and translation apparatus establish a powerful "generic pact" that directs the reception of women's writing within a national literary framework. The anthology does not merely recover neglected texts; it reorganises them through processes of selection, translation, and contextualisation that transform regional and vernacular literary traditions into a coherent feminist archive. Through what may be termed "triple decontextualization," the removal of texts from their original collections, linguistic environments, and regional socio-historical contexts, the anthology creates a new interpretive framework that standardises the category of Indian women's writing. By examining editorial strategies, translatorial interventions, and the anthology's critical apparatus, this article demonstrates how Women Writing in India functions as a foundational archive whose influence continues to shape feminist anthologisation in India. The study concludes by identifying emerging challenges posed by digital archives and by arguing for a more regionally sensitive model of feminist literary preservation.