An essential addition to the postcolonial debate which offers a challenging mode of `reading resistance' which destroys the stereotyped and sensationalised humanist image of the `third world woman' as victim.

Introduction; Chapter 1 THE SUBJECT OF SATI; Chapter 2 REPRESENTING SATI; Chapter 3 LIFE AFTER RAPE; Chapter 4 THE NAME OF THE HUSBAND; Chapter 5 GENDER, LEADERSHIP AND REPRESENTATION; Chapter 6 REAL AND IMAGINED WOMEN; INDEX;

Rajeswari Sunder Rajan lectures in English at the University of Delhi. She has edited a collection of essays entitled The Lie of the Land: English Literary Studies in India and her work on feminist theory and politics has appeared in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society and The Yale Journal of Criticism.