Subverting the Mother of South Asia A Description by Way of Prescription

This article sets out to accomplish two tasks. first, it makes clear the distinction as to what constitutes south asian literature in the first place. secondly to establish that the mother is an important ideological construct in third world literatures, one which is used to counter the onslaught of western neo-colonialism, it highlights the way the ideology of the mother has been disrupted in those books of fiction which have come to be known as south asian literature. it traces the reason for this disruption to the fact that many of these writers are producing literature for the consumption of the western english-reading public. the focus of the article is on fiction written about pakistan and pakistanis, so i have selected texts by two male writers, namely, salman rushdie and hanif kureishi, and i briefly contrast them with those written by two women writers, namely, sara suleri and bapsi sidhwa. all four live outside south asia.