Texts and Paratexts in a Colonial Context. Krupabai Satthianadhan's English Novels 'Saguna' and 'Kamala'

Abstract

The anglophone Indian author Krupabai Satthianadhan (1862-1894) was a second-generation Christian convert and a member of the Christian Tamil family in colonial Madras. Knowledge of English was still a high-caste male privilege when Satthianadhan published reformist articles on female education. Her two novels, the autobiographical Saguna. A Story of Native Christian Life (1892 and 1895) and the posthumous Kamala. A Story of Hindu Life (1894) included forewords and a “Memoir” written by English ladies in the colony. The forewords were dismissed as ‘colonial missionary patronizing verbiage’ at the postcolonial revival of the author in the 1990s. The main aim of the essay is a paratextual analysis of the forewords according to Gérard Genette’s theories. The authors of the paratexts provide their English readers with a sympathetic portrait of Satthianadhan and her novels are praised for literary style and authenticity, qualities understood as tokens of a successful colonial civilizing mission. Experiences of discrimination and ambivalence concerning the English in Saguna are ignored as the novel is read as praise of the Christian conversion in India. Thus, the interpretation in the paratexts and posthumous “Memoir” of the author overshadows Satthianadhan’s narratives. The forewords’ colonialist discourse including white supremacy provide a historical context to Satthianadhan’s novels, but the “Memoir” is also the only biographical source of the writer’s life and writings. The essay investigates the neglect of Satthianadhan’s novels during the Indian struggle for independence and the revival in the feminist postcolonial anthology Women Writing in India (1991). In Meenakshi Mukherjee’s indigenous context Satthianadhan is recognized as the first Indian autobiographrer and spiritual writer including female aspects of conversion. A dialogical tension is set up in Satthianadhan’s novels between colonial education and traditional wisdom, and between individual agency and the power of community characterize her works. Satthianadhan’s literary self-representation as a “simple Indian girl” is a contrast to her pioneer authorship.