La prochaine séance du séminaire de l’axe Transculturalismes du laboratoire VALE (Sorbonne Université), co-organisé par Jaine Chemmachery et Alexis Tadié, aura lieu le 16 avril 2026.

Nous entendrons une présentation de Natacha Lasorak (Université de Nantes) intitulée : “Anita Desai’s Mexico: Pilgrimages and Transmission in The Zigzag Way (2004) and Rosarita (2024)”.

Cette séance aura lieu de 18h à 19h30 à la Maison de la Recherche (28 rue Serpente, 75006 Paris), en salle 001.

Voici un court abstract:

Indian literature in English, particularly within the diaspora, has frequently explored the notion of an “elsewhere” that can be reimagined as a site of belonging—whether a host country, a city or a particular house. However, echoing Vijay Mishra’s statement that “[h]omeland is the desh (in Hindi) against which all the other lands are foreign, or videsh; it is the source of homesickness” (The Literature of the Indian Diaspora, 2007), novels of the second half of the 20th century, by authors such as Anita Desai, Amitav Ghosh or Rohinton Mistry, often underscore India as a place of origin.

This paper seeks to examine how spaces which stand beyond the traditional homeland/host country duality are nevertheless imbued with meaning and a sense of familiarity, particularly in the recent decades. Focusing more specifically on Anita Desai’s latest novel, Rosarita (2024), the paper will explore the emergence of Mexico as an in-between space, where the relationship with India can be reimagined from a distance. The carefully crafted story stages a daughter’s discovery of her mother’s past, revealing how a third space can set the scene for an existential quest and become a site of unexpected transmission and homecoming.

La séance initialement prévue le 21/05/26 avec Anne-Sophie Letessier (Université Jean Monnet – Saint Etienne) est reportée à une date ultérieure.