Navigating Layers of Oppression: An Intersectional Reading of Sujata Massey’s The Murder on Malabar Hill

Abstract

          This paper aims to analyse the 2018 legal mystery novel, The Murder on Malabar Hill, authored by the American novelist Sujata Massey, through an intersectional feminist lens. For this, the theory of intersectional feminism by the American academic and critic Kimberle Williams Crenshaw has been utilised to study how multiple factors like gender, caste, religion, culture, class, profession, etc., coincide and function together in the work of Massey. The Murder on Malabar Hill is the first mystery of the series set in colonial India by Massey, which introduces the character of Perveen Mistry, the first woman solicitor of India. Her character is inspired by the real-life First Indian Woman lawyer, Cornelia Sorabji, who was also the first woman to study law at the University of Oxford.

Keywords: Crime fiction, Intersectionality, Feminism, Colonialism, Systems of oppression, Power Structure