The precarious lives of India’s Others: The creativity of precarity in Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2019)
Journal Article
Mendes, A., & Lau, L. (2019). The precarious lives of India’s Others: The creativity of precarity in Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 1 - 13. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2019.1683758

This article traces the agency of Arundhati Roy’s precariat in The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. In her novel, Roy focuses on how those in the most precarious of social positions manage to retain a toehold within the system by defiant creativity, lat... Read More about The precarious lives of India’s Others: The creativity of precarity in Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.

Re-orientalism and Representation: Aman Sethi Talks About Delhi (2018)
Journal Article
Lau. (2018). Re-orientalism and Representation: Aman Sethi Talks About Delhi. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 372-386. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2018.1461984

In the (re)presentation of India by Indian authors writing in English there is an overlooked, long-standing tradition of sterling commentaries produced by social analysts. In the best of that tradition which blurs the divide between the literary and... Read More about Re-orientalism and Representation: Aman Sethi Talks About Delhi.

Post-9/11 re-orientalism: Confrontation and conciliation in Mohsin Hamid’s and Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2018)
Journal Article
Mendes, A., & Lau, L. (2018). Post-9/11 re-orientalism: Confrontation and conciliation in Mohsin Hamid’s and Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 78-91. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021989416631791

This article offers a comparative reading of the novel and film adaptation of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, looking at the ways these texts represent changing Western public perceptions towards Pakistan and vice-versa along the temporal axis 2001–200... Read More about Post-9/11 re-orientalism: Confrontation and conciliation in Mohsin Hamid’s and Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

The Sinhalese Diaspora: New Directions of Sri Lankan Diasporic Writing. (2016)
Journal Article
Lau. (2016). The Sinhalese Diaspora: New Directions of Sri Lankan Diasporic Writing. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, https://doi.org/10.1080/00856401.2016.1111125

This article investigates a particular sub-section of South Asian literature in English, namely, contemporary diasporic social realism fiction by Sri Lankan authors. It not only explores the little-discussed Sri Lankan Sinhalese diaspora which is usu... Read More about The Sinhalese Diaspora: New Directions of Sri Lankan Diasporic Writing..

India through re-Orientalist Lenses (2014)
Journal Article
Lau, & Mendes, A. (2014). India through re-Orientalist Lenses. Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 706-727. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801x.2014.984619

Re-Orientalism, initially defined as the perpetration of Orientalism by ‘Orientals’ (Lau 2009), is a discourse which comes out of and is inescapably informed by postcolonial and diasporic legacies. The investigation of re-Orientalism has revealed new... Read More about India through re-Orientalist Lenses.