Contextualizing Transnationalism in Indian English Literature: A Study of A Suitable Boy and The Shadow Lines

Abstract

This paper examines the manifestation of transnationalism in two landmark Indian English novels: Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy (1993) and Amitav Ghosh's The Shadow Lines (1988). Through a comparative analysis, this study explores how both authors negotiate the complex terrain of national boundaries, cultural identities, and historical memory in the postcolonial Indian context. While Seth's novel anchors itself primarily within the geographical boundaries of newly independent India, it nonetheless engages with transnational forces through cultural exchange, political discourse, and the looming question of Partition. Ghosh's narrative, conversely, explicitly foregrounds border-crossing, memory, and the artificiality of national boundaries. Drawing on scholarship in transnational studies, postcolonial theory, and South Asian literary criticism, this paper argues that both novels challenge the rigidity of nationalist discourse and reveal how personal narratives transcend geographical and temporal borders. The analysis demonstrates that transnationalism in Indian English literature operates not merely through physical migration but through imaginative mappings, historical consciousness, and the perpetual negotiation between local and global identities.