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'Chick lit' by young non-Western writers provides a rich field of investigation for critics interested in the interaction between local and global, cosmopolitan and vernacular, and between the different inflections of cosmopolitanism which emerge against a complex backdrop of contemporary popular culture and age-old traditional practices. The paper focuses on four novels modelled on Candace Bushnell's chick lit 'classic' Sex and the City: Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea, The People's Republic of Desire by Annie Wang and two novels by Indigenous Australian author Anita Heiss, Not Meeting Mr Right and Avoiding Mr Right. The veneer of consumer cosmopolitanism plays a part in all these books, but they can also be read as illustrations of the 'discrepant modernities' which have given rise to different cosmopolitanisms. [Author's abstract]
Notes
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Epigraphs:
But who are our ''fellow city dwellers'' in the global sense? -- Homi Bhabha , ''Unsatisfied: Notes on Vernacular Cosmopolitanism'' (193)
Did they see that women of all colours are united by the need for beauty products, good chocolate and high-protein foods? -- Anita Heiss, Not Meeting Mr. Right (194)
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Last amended 22 Nov 2011 16:11:59
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