World Next Door

Rajini Srikanth is Associate Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She is the coeditor (with Sunaina Maira) of Contours of the Heart: South Asians Map North America and (with Lavina Dhingra Shankar) of A Part Yet Apart: South Asians in Asian America.

"Rajini Srikanth's The World Next Door is a beautiful and thoughtful exploration of the imagination of South Asian America. We are laid bare by her perceptiveness. Desi texts for her are not just about themselves, but they are also a riposte against the stereotypes of citizenship that engulf us."-Vijay Prashad, author of Karma of Brown Folk and Keeping Up with the Dow Joneses "A pioneering study of the unique contributions of South Asian American writers, both prominent and marginal, situating their vision locally, globally, and within 'the idea of America.' Asian American studies is enriched by Srikanth's timely engagement as much with literary representations of ethnicity, immigrant relocation, transnationalism, [and] sexuality, as with her astute concern with geopolitical dynamics and struggles for social justice in the world today."-Ketu H. Katrak, Chair, Department of Asian American Studies, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine "The introduction to this book is stunning: it brings the reader up to date with the tension that currently underlies the South Asian diaspora in the US... In chapter after chapter, [Srikanth] shows how literature and activism strengthen each other... Essential."-Choice "Among the extraordinary intellects and unique voices discussed by Professor Srikanth are Meena Alexander (Fault Lines), Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient), Muneer Ahmed ("Homeland Insecurities: Racial Violence the Day after September 11"). They are thinkers and writers and activists all at once steeped in a loosely shared cultural ethos and the bondlessness common among exiles from home."-The Asian Reporter "[T]his [is] a very worthwhile study."-The Journal of American Studies

• Acknowledgments1. Introduction2. Transnational Homepages: Safety in Multiple Addresses3. Desire, Gender, and Sexuality4. Writing What You're Not: Limits and Possibilities of the Insider Imperative5. Trust and Betrayal in the Idea of AmericaNotesBibliographyIndex