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y separately published work icon Neem Dreams single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2002... 2002 Neem Dreams
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Andy, an English lawyer looking for a miracle cure. Pandora, an Australian eco-scientist, looking for the perfect women's project. Meenakshi, author and co-ordinator of the project, returned to India to work for rural development. And Jade, an Australian working in New York, comes to buy neem skin care products to sell exclusively at a New York store. The past passions of each of the four brings to their meeting in India are revealed in a web-like plot, with the neem tree acting as a kind of crucible for each as the novel draws to a startling climax.' (Publication summary)

Notes

  • Dedication: To C. M. Ketkar, in loving appreciation of his invaluable friendship, assistance and inspiring spirit

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

y separately published work icon Transcultural Writers and Novels in the Age of Global Mobility Arianna Dagnino , Lafayette : Purdue University Press , 2015 8887143 2015 single work criticism

'In Transcultural Writers and Novels in the Age of Global Mobility, Arianna Dagnino analyzes a new type of literature emerging from artists’ increased movement and cultural flows spawned by globalization. This "transcultural" literature is produced by authors who write across cultural and national boundaries and who transcend in their lives and creative production the borders of a single culture. Dagnino's book contains a creative rendition of interviews conducted with five internationally renowned writers—Inez Baranay, Brian Castro, Alberto Manguel, Tim Parks, and Ilija Trojanow—and a critical exegesis reflecting on thematical, critical, and stylistical aspects.

'By studying the selected authors’ corpus of work, life experiences, and cultural orientations, Dagnino explores the implicit, often subconscious, process of cultural and imaginative metamorphosis that leads transcultural writers and their fictionalized characters beyond ethnic, national, racial, or religious loci of identity and identity formation. Drawing on the theoretical framework of comparative cultural studies, she offers insight into transcultural writing related to belonging, hybridity, cultural errancy, the "Other," worldviews, translingualism, deterritorialization, neonomadism, as well as genre, thematic patterns, and narrative techniques. Dagnino also outlines the implications of transcultural writing within the wider context of world literature(s) and identifies some of the main traits that characterize “transcultural novels.”' (Publication summary)

Critics, Crucibles, and a Literary Career Alison Bartlett , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: Wanderings in India : Australian Perspectives 2012; (p. 126-137)

'When Inez Baranay’s seventh book, Neem Dreams, was released in September 2003, it met with wide critical acclaim in India, yet was barely noticed in Australia. Baranay had been publishing in Australia for almost 20 years, but this novel was published in India, indicating a shift in her publishing career. While Neem Dreams continues Baranay’s interest in issues of Third-World development and with Western tourism, travel and trade, I propose in this chapter that it also engages with Australian literary criticism, especially in postcolonial debates. Neem Dreams was released almost a decade after Baranay’s nonfiction text, Rascal Rain (1994), which met with fierce criticism. That decade was one in which Baranay addressed that criticism, contemporary theory and the academy. I argue, therefore, that Neem Dreams signals Baranay’s uneasy relationship with Australian writing, publishing and identity, as well as her changed attitude to the academy and contemporary theory. While the back cover blurb of Neem Dreams alerts us to the neem tree ‘acting as a kind of crucible for India’, I want to argue that, in many ways, postcolonial theory is the crucible for this book. In this chapter then, I offer a reading of Baranay’s literary career from 1994 to 2004 through its encounters with the academy, with Rascal Rain and Neem Dreams operating as bookends. Her substantial and productive career means that shifts in institutional and political discourses become evident in tracing the ways in which Baranay’s texts and career are read (and written). I am interested in the kinds of questions a career such as hers raises about the imbrication of theory and fiction and the circulation of authority among writers, critics and the academy.' (Introduction)

Reconfiguring 'Asian Australian' Writing : Australia, India and Inez Baranay Paul Sharrad , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 70 no. 3 2010; (p. 11-29) Mapping South Asian Diasporas 2018; (p. 250-267)
Inez Baranay's Literary Career Alison Bartlett , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 21 no. 2 2007; (p. 111-115) Australian Made : A Multicultural Reader 2010; (p. 17-32)

'When Inez Baranay’s seventh book, Neem Dreams, was released in September 2003, it met with wide critical acclaim in India, yet was barely noticed in Australia. Baranay had been publishing in Australia for almost 20 years, but this novel was published in India, indicating a shift in her publishing career. While Neem Dreams continues Baranay’s interest in issues of Third-World development and with Western tourism, travel and trade, I propose in this chapter that it also engages with Australian literary criticism, especially in postcolonial debates. Neem Dreams was released almost a decade after Baranay’s nonfiction text, Rascal Rain (1994), which met with fierce criticism. That decade was one in which Baranay addressed that criticism, contemporary theory and the academy. I argue, therefore, that Neem Dreams signals Baranay’s uneasy relationship with Australian writing, publishing and identity, as well as her changed attitude to the academy and contemporary theory. While the back cover blurb of Neem Dreams alerts us to the neem tree ‘acting as a kind of crucible for India’, I want to argue that, in many ways, postcolonial theory is the crucible for this book. In this chapter then, I offer a reading of Baranay’s literary career from 1994 to 2004 through its encounters with the academy, with Rascal Rain and Neem Dreams operating as bookends. Her substantial and productive career means that shifts in institutional and political discourses become evident in tracing the ways in which Baranay’s texts and career are read (and written). I am interested in the kinds of questions a career such as hers raises about the imbrication of theory and fiction and the circulation of authority among writers, critics and the academy.' (Introduction)

Multicultural Experience in the Poems of Judith Rodriguez and Inez Baranay's Neem Dreams Smita Agarwal , 2006 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australia and India : Interconnections : Identity, Representation, Belonging 2006; (p. 182-192)
Smita Agarwal examines Inez Baranay's Neem Dreams and a range of poems from Judith Rodriguez's House by the Water: New and Selected Poems. Agarwal concludes: 'Between the two texts under consideration in this paper, the reader discerns multiculturalism's literary journey in a technologically advancing, globalised world. Whereas in the Rodriguez poems ... the explorations are tentative and self-reflexive, Baranay's novel is strident in its approach, with an emphasis on contemporary diversity and its thrust on the idea of other nations and cultures being able to contribute their experience on an equal footing to our collective understanding of a globalised society.'
Untitled Ch A Rajendra Prasad , 2005 single work review
— Appears in: JAS Review of Books , June no. 34 2005;

— Review of Neem Dreams Inez Baranay , 2002 single work novel
Unbiased Perspective Padmini Devarajan , 2003 single work review
— Appears in: The Hindu Literary Review , 2 November 2003;

— Review of Neem Dreams Inez Baranay , 2002 single work novel
Writer from Down Under Sells Meenakshi Kumar , 2003 single work review
— Appears in: The Hindustan Times , 4 September 2003;

— Review of Neem Dreams Inez Baranay , 2002 single work novel
This Novelist Has a 'Neem Dream' Shabnam Minwalla , 2003 single work review
— Appears in: The Times of India , 15 September 2003;

— Review of Neem Dreams Inez Baranay , 2002 single work novel

The azadiracht indica or neem may hardly seem to be a promising protagonist of a novel, but the commonplace evergreen made a debut in the world of fiction earlier this week.' 

 

Sun Square Moon Inez Baranay , 2002 extract thesis (Sun Square Moon : An Exegesis with Accompanying Novel : Neem Dreams)
— Appears in: LiNQ , October vol. 29 no. 2 2002; (p. 74-82)
'These pieces come from my current work, a PhD dissertation about the writing of the novel Neem Dreams. ... This meta-work, called Sun Square Moon employs a range of voices and styles to explore issues in writing this novel.' -- Inez Baranay, p.74
Fraught Territory Inez Baranay , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Meanjin , vol. 62 no. 3 2003; (p. 223-229)
Indian Dreams Eugenie Pinto , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Crossings : Bulletin of the International Australian Studies Association , vol. 8 no. 3 2003;
'Inez Baranay's Neem Dreams breaks new ground in its attempt to capture the spirit of India through one of its sacred objects-the neem tree. Opening as it does with an emphatic statement that 'it is a free tree' it goes on to question if it is still a free tree? The rest of the book attempts to explore this question in relation to four characters each of whom is connected in one way or the other with this 'miracle tree'.' (Introduction)
 
No Such Bitter Dreams Inez Baranay , 2004 single work essay
— Appears in: Australian Author , April vol. 36 no. 1 2004; (p. 26-28, 30-31)
Multiculturalism, Globalisation and Worldliness : Origin and Destination of the Text Inez Baranay , 2004 single work essay
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 3 no. 2004; (p. 117-132)
Last amended 14 Jan 2020 07:50:43
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