Women's Friendship in Contemporary Diasporic Fiction

This book argues that women writers of colour, specifically those situated within Anglophone diasporic contexts, have played a significant role in the rewriting and diversification of women’s relations in literature, mainly by dismantling the traditional view of women as kindred spirits and of women’s friendships as exclusively private bonds. Through an interdisciplinary framework that is based on philosophical, sociological, and literary criticism, the book explores how the selected contemporary novels complexify the representation of female bonds in literature by adding sociological vectors of difference related to the characters’ respective gender, racial, sexual, class, and national identities. Additionally, the book examines how these fictional bonds play a political role by creating a space that both motivates the characters’ civic agency and enables the authors to explore ethical human connections. All in all, this book addresses a central concern in contemporary society: how we form relationships with one another and how we might cultivate ethical connections that enhance both individual and collective well-being.