Note that not all of the novels mentioned here are "romance" as defined in this database. Here's the abstract:
This chapter critically examines post-millennial romance fiction in India, analysing its themes, authors, and socio-cultural implications. Drawing from a diverse pool of literary works, including mainstream and queer romance, it investigates the genre’s evolution within the Indian literary landscape. This chapter highlights the contributions of prominent authors such as Chetan Bhagat, Durjoy Datta, and Anuja Chauhan as well as queer narratives by authors such as Niladri Chatterjee, Raj Rao, and Sandhya Menon to showcase the diversity of voices shaping contemporary romance narratives. Through conceptual lenses informed by fields such as privilege studies, this chapter interrogates the perception of romance as catering to consumerist or bourgeois classes, revealing aspects such as class dynamics within the genre’s audience that illuminate twenty-first-century India’s systemic privileges. Further, this chapter investigates the predominance of male authorship and its tendency to appropriate the voices of marginalized genders, perpetuating cisheteronormative and ethnonationalistic narratives. Additionally, it explores how consumerism and the culture industry contribute to commodifying bodies and identities within romantic storytelling. While acknowledging the scope and limitations of such a study, this chapter examines how post-millennial romance fiction reflects and influences societal attitudes towards love, gender, and class in contemporary India.
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I begin this chapter with an introductory overview of consumerism and class dynamics in post‑millennial Indian romance fiction, then present a brief overview of the development of the genre, and move to critically reviewing selected works in the genre through three overarching topics: the impact of globalization and cultural exchange in Ravinder Singh’s Can Love Happen Twice? (2011) and Anuja Chauhan’s The Zoya Factor (2008), ethnonationalism and the portrayal of ‘the other’ in Raj Rao’s The Boyfriend (2003) and Niladri R. Chatterjee’s The Scholar (2022) and the commodification of bodies and identities through consumerism and the culture industry in Anisha Bhatia’s The Rules of Arrangement (2021) and Andaleeb Wajid’s Accidentally Married (2021). (329)
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The rise of romance fiction in post‑millennial India unfolds within a landscape shaped by globalization and burgeoning consumerism. This genre, while ostensibly concerned with love and intimacy, frequently reinforces and caters to the experiences of a privileged readership. Contemporary Indian romance novels often foreground aspirational lifestyles, characterized by high‑income professions, urban living, and conspicuous consumer power, constructing an idealized vision of romance that marginalizes and often excludes lower socio‑economic classes. (329)
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Another significant motif of post‑millennial Indian romance fiction is the predominance of privileged cisgender, often male, authorship and its implications for gender representation within the genre. Many notable works still emerge from male authors who often dominate the narrative landscape. Ravinder Singh and Durjoy Datta, two of the most commercially successful authors in this space, have collectively published over 25 romance novels since the mid‑2000s, contributing significantly to the mainstream shaping of the genre. Their prolific output and sustained popularity reinforce a narrative ecosystem where male perspectives on love, intimacy, and relationships frequently occupy centre stage, often sidelining the complexity of female and queer experiences. I argue that such authorship tends to appropriate the experiences of marginalized genders, often favouring cisheteronormative and ethnonationalistic narratives. Further, I contend that romance narratives frequently construct female characters that serve the male gaze. (330)
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Islamophobia, which intensified after 9/11, has subtly infiltrated popular Indian romance fiction, shaping the ways in which interfaith relationships are portrayed. The majoritarian suspicion towards Muslims in post‑9/11 India is reflected in romance novels that either avoid Muslim–Hindu relationships or depict them as fraught with tension. (334)
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Despite the pervasive influence of consumerism and ethnonationalism, some authors and narratives discussed [...] do resist the commodification of bodies and identities within romantic storytelling by offering alternative narratives that foreground marginalized voices and experiences. (337)
Note that not all of the novels mentioned here are "romance" as defined in this database. Here's the abstract:
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