The Book : This book is organized around three approaches towards understanding feminism - theoretical tenets, literary criticism, and applications. Beginning with an account of the nature of feminist movement and mapping out the feminist ideology, the book proceeds to examine the complexities of feminist thought and the major concerns of feminist theory. This brings into close focus the issues of the 'otherness' and 'marginality' of woman, the essentialist/constructionist biharism in feminist theory, the relational and individualistic aspect of feminist thought, and the spurt in feminist thought and theory in the wake of spostructuralist theories. The critique ultimately centres on the question - is woman born or made ? Feminist literary criticism, as outlined in the book, has developed as a component of the women's movement and its impact has brought about a revolution in literary studies. It has opened up altogether new perspective and provided refreshing and insightful strategies in reading and responding to literary texts. This study offers an analysis of the selected works of Norman Mailer, Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Atwood and ZMargaret Drabble from this perspective. The newly emerging dimensions of feminism have also been discussed in the context of the politics of post colonial culture.

The Author : Sushila Singh (b.1945) is Professor of English at the Benaras Hindu University.She obtained Ph.D. in 1969 for her thesis on Jane Austen. Senior Fulbright Fellow at the Department of English, Yale University, USA in the year 1992, she was awarded the Olive I. Reddick Prize (1994) for research in Literature (Senior Category) by the Indian Association for American Studies. She has published extensively on fiction, feminism and cultural criticism. Her publications include two books: Jane Austen: Her concept of Social Life (1981) and Feminism and Recent Fiction in English(1991).