Postcolonial Servitude

Domestic servitude is a widespread phenomenon in countries like India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, where even lower-middle class homes rely on domestic workers (mostly women and children). While social scientists have begun to study this unregulated and exploitative informal sector, literary critics have not paid attention to servants in South Asian literatures or examined their political or literary significance. Postcolonial Servitude argues that a new generation of writers has begun to rethink this culture of servitude and to devise new forms of writing designed to prompt change in normalized ways of seeing and being. It is the first to offer a sustained exploration of servitude and servants in South Asian English literature, from the early 20th century to the present.