Translating Letters, Translating Women: An Insight into Tagores Experiments with Epistolary Fiction

This paper aims at exploring the fictional works of Rabindranath Tagore (both original and translated texts) that use letters as integral tools of narration by using the concept of ‘epistolarity’ formulated by Janet Gurkin Altman. It would further enunciate how the female characters in his stories are given a unique voice through these letters. It is to be noted that these fictional letters are written by characters who are colonial women confined to the ‘antopura’ or inner quarters of the household. Most of these letters celebrate female subjectivity through language; it is not how a man would write a letter but a letter constructed in what Helene Cixous calls ‘ecriture feminine’. For the same, three seminal works of fiction by Tagore would be considered, “The Wife’s Letter”, “House Number One