Githa Hariharan's Kaleidoscopic view of woman in "The Thousand Faces of Night"

The present paper aims to study multi-faceted roles of women in Githa Hariharan’s debut novel “The Thousand Faces of Night”. The identity of a woman has always enjoyed a defining significance in the thematic framework of the Indo-Anglican novels. The decade of the nineties was the natural extension of the thematic boldness and technical innovativeness. It is also the period which marks the flowering of Githa Hariharan as a novelist. Githa Hariharan enjoys a crucial place in the history of Indian English fiction. On one hand she is an integral part of the larger part of tradition, on the other hand, she is an important cord in the tradition of Indian women writers. It is clear from a close survey of these two traditions that the crisis of identity in a woman’s life is the pivotal aspect of the techno-thematic network of the Indian English fiction. The age of Githa Hariharan is undisputedly the most complex phase of the cultural history of India. There were quick transitions and subtle and unpredictable changes that redefined the identity of individual in general and of a woman in particular. All the five novels that hit the literary horizon are written during this tumultuous era of Indian socio- cultural history. The woman plays pivotal role in the thematic design of the novels of Githa Hariharan. Thus a study of woman situation in her novels is to explore the depth of the narrative and discover the latent meaning and experience of her narratives.