Possession (Markandaya novel)

Possession

First edition
Author	Kamala Markandaya
Language	English
Publisher	John Day Company (US) Putnam (UK)
Publication date	1963
Publication place	India
Media type	print
Pages	249
OCLC	1880201

Possession: a novel is a 1963 English-language novel by Kamala Markandaya.^[1]

Plot summary

The action of Possession begins around the year 1949, and continues through the 1950s and early 1960s.^[2] An Englishwoman, Lady Caroline Bell, discovers Valmiki, a teenage goatherd who has been painting in local caves, in a village in South India. Snatching Valmiki from the protection of an elderly local swami, she brings him back to London as an exotic pet artist. Jealously guarding Valmiki's attachment to her, Lady Bell cannot stop him eventually returning to India after the suicide of Ellie, a concentration camp survivor whom Valmiki paints and makes pregnant. She follows him back to India, to find him spiritually reattached to the swami and once again painting in the caves around his village.

The "possession" of the book's title refers to the woman's desire to own the man and the man's possession by a foreign identity with new values.^[1]

References

1. Fister, Barbara (1995). "Possession". Third World Women's Literatures: A Dictionary and Guide to Materials in English. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 247. ISBN 978-0-313-28988-0.
2. K. S. Narayana Rao, 'Some Notes on the Plots of Kamala Markandya's Novels', Indian Literature, Vol. 13, No. 1 (March 1970), p. 102

Further reading

• Hemamalathy, A. An Analysis of Kamala Markandaya’s Possessionas a Novel on the Growing up of the Artist, Language in India, Vol, 12 (2012)
• Nemet, Sofija, 'Hybridity in Jamala Markandaya's Possession.' Filolog, Vol. 13, No. 13 (June 2016), pp.402-416
• Sethuraman, Ramchandryan. Writing across cultures: sexual/racial 'othering' in Kamala Markandaya's Possession. ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature, Vol 23, No. 3 (July 1992), pp. 101-120