SOURCE: Parikh, Bharati A. “Heroines of Toni Morrison and Anita Desai: A Cross-Cultural Perspective.” Indian Journal of American Studies 23, no. 2 (summer 1993): 17-25.

In the following essay, Parikh compares the treatment of female relationships in Toni Morrison's fiction with that in Desai's novels, emphasizing the alienation experienced by the characters in their respective cultures.

What makes a writer memorable, wonderful teller of stories, passionately in love with her people, creating unforgettable heroines and heroes and making them breathe? The answer is Toni Morrison and her world peopled with young black girls, adolescent Sula and Nel, Pecola Breedlove and Milkman, alias Macon Dead Jr.

The overwhelming power of the writer as a teller of stories is wonderfully felt in all the novels of Morrison. What strikes one in Morrison's world is her depiction of relationships between women. No major writer has dealt with this theme. Here Morrison feels that:

Relationships...