King

king

Vintage and antique love tokens 

south asian lesbian literature

I. autobiography

Samra Habib, We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir

Kamala Das, My Story

Suniti Namjoshi, Goja: An Autobiographical Myth

Minal Hajratwala, Leaving India: My Family’s Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents

Nishta J. Mehra, Brown White Black: An American Family at the Intersection of Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Religion

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home

II. fiction

Suniti Namjoshi, Feminist Fables

Suniti Namjoshi, The Conversations of Cow

SJ Sindu, Marriage of a Thousand Lies

Amruta Patil, Kari

Shamim Sarif, The World Unseen

Parvati Sharma, The Dead Camel and Others Stories of Love

Dolar Vasani, Not Yet Uhuru

Mala Kumar, The Paths of Marriage

Shani Mootoo, Out On Main Street

Shani Mootoo, Cereus Blooms at Night 

Shani Mootoo, Polar Vortex

Farazana Doctor, Stealing Nasreen

Out! Stories from the New Queer India, ed. Minal Hajratwala

IIb. fiction - dubious depiction of lesbian relationships by non-lesbians (there are more of course, and you can read about some of them in Same-Sex love in India: Readings from Literature and History, eds. Vanita and Kidwai)

Ismat Chughtai, “The Quilt”

Ismat Chughtai, The Crooked Line 

Manju Kapur, A Married Woman

Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland

Nayana Currimbhoy, Miss Timmins’ School for Girls

Tanwi Nandini Islam, Bright Lines: A Novel

Abha Dawesar, Babyji

III. poetry

Anurima Banerji

Suniti Namjoshi

Kamala Das

Kaushalya Bannerji

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Samira Obeid

Nila Gupta

Minal Hajratwala

Kosar Saira

Ruth Vanita

V.K. Aruna

Ghazala Anwar

Inez Dullas

Neema Vachani

Mita Radhakrishnan

Maya Chowdhry

IV. non-fiction and mixed anthologies

Naisargi Dave, Queer Activism in India: A Story in the Anthropology of Ethics 

Ruth Vanita, Love’s Rite: Same-Sex Marriage in India and the West

Frances B. Singh, Scandal and Survival in Nineteenth-Century Scotland: The Life of Jane Cumming

Maya Sharma, Loving Women: Being Lesbian in Unprivileged India

Giti Thadani, Sakhiyani: Lesbian Desire in Ancient and Modern India

Because I Have A Voice: Queer Politics in India, eds. Arvind Narrain and Gautam Bhan

No Outlaws in the Gender Galaxy, eds. Chayanika Shah, Raj Merchant, Shals Mahajan, Smriti Nevatia

Sex and the Supreme Court: How the Law is Upholding the Dignity of the Indian Citizen, ed. Saurabh Kirpal

Suparna Bhaskaran, Made in India: Decolonializations, Queer Sexualities, Trans/National Projects

Women’s Sexualities and Masculinities in a Globalizing Asia, eds. Saskia E. Wieringa, Evelyn Blackwood and Abha Bhaiya

Facing the Mirror: Lesbian Writing from India, ed. Ashwini Sukthankar

Shraddha Chatterjee, Queer Politics in India: Towards Sexual Subaltern Subjects

Same-Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History, eds. Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidawi

Queering India: Same-Sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society, ed. Ruth Vanita

Gayatri Gopinath, Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures 

A Lotus of Another Color, ed. Rakesh Ratti

The Very Inside: An Anthology of Writings by Asian & Pacific Islander Lesbian and Bisexual Women, ed. Sharon Lim-Hing

Urvashi Vaid, Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation

Urvashi Vaid, Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics

Sara Ahmed, Living a Feminist Life

Monisha Das Gupta, Unruly Immigrants Rights, Activism, and Transnational South Asian Politics in the United States

Ami Ramesh Patel, “A Community History of Satrang: Negotiating Visibility as LGBTQ South Asian Americans in Los Angeles"

Sharon Fernandez, “More than Just an Arts Festival: Communities, Resistance, and the Story of Desh Pardesh” 

*lesbian is used both as an adjective and noun in this list. works are included that deal with lesbian relationships. 

**south asian lesbian cinema for south asian lesbian films and documentaries (the original post is updated whenever more are found)

***south asian lesbian visual art: chitra ganesh, parminder sekhon, samra habib, mumtaz karimjee, sunil gupta, amruta patil, debi ray-chaudhuri, theresa thadani, sharon fernandez etc… not going to attempt to make a full list but check them out.

FOOD SYMBOLISM IN FILM

Moonlight (2016)

Parasite (2019)

Little Women (2019)

Get Out (2017)

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Raw (2016)

Call Me by Your Name (2017)

Gone Girl (2014)

The Shape of Water (2017)

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001)

Kill la Kill au with jinkook was begging to be made!