Mirrors and doubles: heterotopias and intertextuality in contemporary Hindi fiction

During the last decades of the 20th century, plurality, uncertainty and the rejection of hierarchical models and unifying narratives be- come essential literary ingredients on a worldwide scale. In such a context, several Hindi works of fiction resort to strategies like oth- erworldliness and intertextuality to foreground a condition of on- tological plurality and instability. Authors incorporate heterotopic spaces or entities and play with intertextual references echoing their characters’ everyday world and experiences. By addressing four recent novels – Hariyā Harkyūlīz kī hairānī (1994), Dāstān-e-lāptā (1995), Dīvār meṁ ek khiṛkī rahtī thī (1997), and Pīlī chatrīvālī laṛkī (2001) – this paper will discuss how Hindi authors create intriguing games of mirrors and doubles embracing, at one and the same time, current, widespread tendencies, and ancient local traditions.