Acknowledgments ix

1. Impossible Desires: An Introduction 1

2. Communities of Sound: Queering South Asian Popular Music in the Diaspora 29

3. Surviving Naipaul: Housing Masculinity in A House for Mr. Biswas, Surviving Sabu, and East Is East 63

4. Bollywood/Hollywood: Queer Cinematic Representation and the Perils of Translation 93

5. Local Sites/Global Contexts: The Transnational Trajectories of Fire and "The Quilt" 131

6. Nostalgia, Desire, and Diaspora: Funny Boy and Cereus Blooms at Night 161

7. Epilogue: Queer Homes in Diaspora 187

Notes 195

Bibliography 221

Filmography 235

Index 237

“Impossible Desires is a fascinating and lively book that is lucidly written. It can be used equally well with committed undergraduate students as well as by more advanced scholarly readers to engage further with the queer female diasporic subject and the possibilities that she suggests.” — Rajinder Dudrah, GLQ

“[A] fascinating study of queer diasporas and South Asian public cultures. . . .” — Vijay Mishra, The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Studies

“[E]xcellent . . . [Gopinath’s study] productively expand[s] and complicate[s] the modes of critical knowledge production in Asian American literary/cultural studies against any presumptions of certain belonging within and across disciplinary and interdisciplinary borders.” — Laura Hyun Yi Kang, Feminist Studies

“[T]his smart and well-written book signals a sea change in the field. . . . Impossible Desires stands as a pathbreaking work, addressing persistent exclusions in both feminist and queer literatures on South Asian public culture and significantly reworking current conceptualizations of diaspora.” — Lawrence Cohen, Journal of Asian Studies

“By bringing queer theory to bear on ideas of diaspora, Gayatri Gopinath produces both a more compelling queer theory and a more nuanced understanding of diaspora. . . . Gopinath's readings are dazzling, and her theoretical framework transformative and far-reaching.” — Indologica blog

“Gopinath . . . boldly charts a history of the present in which heteronormativity and contemporary nationalisms are neither a natural nor
an inevitable result of neoliberal globalization marching across the world.” — David Eng, GLQ

“Her lively, accessible writing ranges from British-Asian music, through Bollywood/Hollywood to the work of Pakistani writer Ishmat Chugtai. Her analysis of films including Fire and Monsoon Wedding is a particular highlight.” — Diva Magazine

"Gopinath offers us tantalizing opportunities to forge a queer feminist diasporic critique that considers multiple forms of difference that compete, align, and are suspended in tension within South Asian diasporic cultures." — Amy Brandzel and Jigna Desai, Journal of the History of Sexuality

“Impossible Desires is a fascinating and lively book that is lucidly written. It can be used equally well with committed undergraduate students as well as by more advanced scholarly readers to engage further with the queer female diasporic subject and the possibilities that she suggests.” —Rajinder Dudrah, GLQ

“[A] fascinating study of queer diasporas and South Asian public cultures. . . .” —Vijay Mishra, The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Studies

“[E]xcellent . . . [Gopinath’s study] productively expand[s] and complicate[s] the modes of critical knowledge production in Asian American literary/cultural studies against any presumptions of certain belonging within and across disciplinary and interdisciplinary borders.” —Laura Hyun Yi Kang, Feminist Studies

“[T]his smart and well-written book signals a sea change in the field. . . . Impossible Desires stands as a pathbreaking work, addressing persistent exclusions in both feminist and queer literatures on South Asian public culture and significantly reworking current conceptualizations of diaspora.” —Lawrence Cohen, Journal of Asian Studies

“By bringing queer theory to bear on ideas of diaspora, Gayatri Gopinath produces both a more compelling queer theory and a more nuanced understanding of diaspora. . . . Gopinath's readings are dazzling, and her theoretical framework transformative and far-reaching.” —Indologica blog

“Gopinath . . . boldly charts a history of the present in which heteronormativity and contemporary nationalisms are neither a natural nor
an inevitable result of neoliberal globalization marching across the world.” —David Eng, GLQ

“Her lively, accessible writing ranges from British-Asian music, through Bollywood/Hollywood to the work of Pakistani writer Ishmat Chugtai. Her analysis of films including Fire and Monsoon Wedding is a particular highlight.” —Diva Magazine

"Gopinath offers us tantalizing opportunities to forge a queer feminist diasporic critique that considers multiple forms of difference that compete, align, and are suspended in tension within South Asian diasporic cultures." —Amy Brandzel and Jigna Desai, Journal of the History of Sexuality

“Boldly spanning Hindi film, British Asian music, Urdu literature, diasporic postcolonial literature and film, U.S. queer activism, and feminist politics, Gayatri Gopinath argues that queer desire becomes central to the ways in which national and diasporic histories are told when the erotics of power is acknowledged. Impossible Desires is a deft demonstration of both queer theory’s dominant ethnocentrism and diaspora and postcolonial studies’ heteronormativity and androcentrism.” — Ranjana Khanna, author of, Dark Continents: Psychoanalysis and Colonialism

“Gayatri Gopinath’s innovative book marks a new stage in queer and diasporic studies. Incisive, expansive, and nuanced, Gopinath’s analysis will surely be invoked by academics in the future. A landmark piece of scholarship!” — Martin F. Manalansan IV, author of, Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora

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