Rewriting of Gender and Sexuality in Tanwi Nandini Islam's Bright Lines

Abstract

This chapter seeks to explore the Bangladeshi diasporic writer Tanwi Nandini Islam's debut novel Bright Lines (2015) to study the subtle nuances of (female) identity and sexuality as portrayed through its main characters. The chapter draws upon the poststructuralist feminist Helene Cixous's notions of the feminine, the other, queer intimacy, and l'écriture feminine to explore the various ways in which prescribed definitions of gender and sexuality are contested and reconstructed. The focus on main characters Ella and Maya revealed that female excess and other bisexuality render the rewriting of one's destiny through the body possible. Whereas the former owns himself by forsaking her female body and embodying a male one, the latter owns herself by using her body as a channel of resistance and rebellion against conventional gender expectations. It is concluded that both characters find fulfilment of self by rewriting their gender and sexuality.