Rohinton Mistry's Family Shakespeare

Authors

Deanne Williams York University

Abstract

This article examines the significance of Shakespeare in the work of Rohinton Mistry, especially Such A Long Journey (1991). Born in Bombay and emigrating to Canada in 1975, Mistry is a Canadian novelist who writes primarily about the India of his youth. His use of Shakespeare signals Canada's shared heritage with India as former British colonies, allowing Mistry to participate doubly in the postcolonial tradition of creative engagement with Shakespeare. It demonstrates, as well, that Canadian appropriations of Shakespeare extend beyond French, English, and native Canada, calling attention to Shakespeare's particular meaning and relevance within the large population of Indo-Canadians. Through Shakespeare, Mistry addresses the problems faced by contemporary urban Indians and Canadians alike: the trials and tribulations of immigration, the limitations and vulnerabilities of classic liberal multiculturalism and its cosmopolitan ideals, and the challenges of membership in a minority community.

Author Biography

Deanne Williams, York University

Deanne Williams is Associate Professor of English at York University, Toronto. She is the author of The French Fetish from Chaucer to Shakespeare (Cambridge, 2004), which won the Roland H. Bainton Prize from the Sixteenth Century Society, and co-editor, with Ananya Jahanara Kabir, of Postcolonial Approaches to the European Middle Ages: Translating Cultures (Cambridge, 2005). Current research includes a study of early modern girlhood, entitled Girls Own Shakespeare, and a SSHRC-funded project called Shakespearean Medievalism. In 2003 she received the John Charles Polanyi Prize for Literature.