Voices From the Margins: Feminism, Caste and Resistance in Meena Kandasamy and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Selected Works

Peer-Reviewed
The Criterion

The Criterion: An International Journal in English ISSN: 0976-8165

Open Access

Comparative Literature

Voices From the Margins: Feminism, Caste and Resistance in Meena Kandasamy and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Selected Works

Parashurama
Volume / Issue
Vol. 17, Issue 1 · February 2026

Pages
531-541

Article ID
2026V17N1061

Abstract

Literature has long served as a site of resistance for marginalized voices. Both African and Dalit women writers have employed literature to articulate the lived realities of oppression shaped by Race, Caste, Class, and Gender. This writing undertakes a comparative study of Meena Kandasamy, an Indian Dalit feminist writer, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian novelist, examining how their works function as feminist interventions against systematic violence. Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun by Adichie, alongside Meena Kandasamy’s Gypsy Goddess and When I Hit You, this study highlights how both the authors from different countries interrogate patriarchy, social hierarchies, and structures of silencing, using intersectionality, postcolonial feminist and Dalit feminist frameworks, the present article argues that while Meena Kandasamy’s writing exposes the intersection of caste and gender oppression in India, Adichie foregrounds the entanglements of race and gender in postcolonial Nigeria. Despite their distinct socio-historical contexts, both writers transformed literature into a strong weapon, reclaiming silenced narratives and envisioning a feminist ethics of resistance.

Keywords

FeminismCasteRaceGenderIntersectionalityDalit LiteratureComparative.

Article History

Received
22-01-2026
Accepted
16 February 2026
Published Online
3 February 2026

How to Cite

Parashurama. “Voices From the Margins: Feminism, Caste and Resistance in Meena Kandasamy and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Selected Works.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 1, Feb. 2026, pp. 531-541. ISSN: 0976-8165. DOI: https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n1.37

Back to Vol. 17, Issue 1 · February 2026 The Criterion · ISSN 0976-8165

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