Staff profile

Academic Bio

I am Associate Professor of South Asian Literature. I received my PhD from Aix-Marseille University in 2012 and joined Durham University in September 2018. I have held an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Bonn as well as a BeIPD-COFUND Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Liege. I was also the recipient of a Charles Wallace Pakistan Trust Visiting Fellowship which was held at Newcastle University. I have taught at several universities and colleges in Pakistan, including Kinnaird College for Women and the National College of Arts, Lahore.

Contact information:

Office address: ER 266, Elvet Riverside 2

Email: maryam.mirza@durham.ac.uk

Telephone: +44 (0) 1913344335

Office Hour (2025/2026):

2.30 - 3.30 pm, Fridays via Teams.

Please email for an appointment.

Research

My research interests lie at the intersection of South Asian postcolonial literature, gender studies, sociology, political philosophy, law and economics.

My first monograph Intimate Class Acts: Friendship and Desire in Indian and Pakistani Women's Fiction (Oxford University Press, 2016) is an interdisciplinary study of ten anglophone novels that grapple with the fascinating theme of emotional and physical intimacy between the haves and the have-nots in the Indian subcontinent. It brings to the fore how material inequality intersects with other forms of social stratification, notably, gender and caste, to determine the complexion and longevity of intimate human relationships. It illustrates not only the tenuousness of cross-class intimacy, as depicted in works of fiction, but also its subversive possibilities. Moreover, the study demonstrates that while the English-language novel of the region can be ‘elitist’ and politically conservative, it can also produce nuanced narratives centred on the socio-economic subaltern’s voice, agency, and sensibility.

My second monograph entitled Resistance and Its Discontents in South Asian Women's Fiction (Manchester University Press, 2023) explores the theme of resistance through the lens of Anglophone fiction by contemporary writers such as Arundhati Roy, Kamila Shamsie, Manju Kapur, Tahmima Anam, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Meena Kandasamy.

My third book South Asian Literature, which I co-wrote with Professor Stuti Khanna (IIT Delhi), will be released in January 2027. This book brings twenty-first-century anglophone writings from India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka into sustained dialogue with contemporary works in the Hindi and Urdu languages. I am the sole author of three of the six chapters: Chapter 1 ("Colonial Times and Legacies"), Chapter 3 ("Gender and Sexuality") and Chapter 6 ("Migrations, Displacements, and Dislocations"). More information about the book is available here: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003039624/south-asian-literature-stuti-khanna-maryam-mirza.

I am now working on my fourth book, provisionally entitled Troubling Legalities: Justice, Citizenship, and the Law in Pakistani Literature, Film, and Television.

Department Roles

2026 -                  Digital Communications Lead

2023 -  2026       Director of Postgraduate Research (Admissions and Funding)

2020 - 2023        Chair, International Committee

Teaching:

I launched a new Level 3 module 'Legality and Justice in South Asian Literature and Film' in October 2025. I am also the module leader/convenor of an MA module entitled 'The Partition of India: Creative Responses' [not being offered in 2026/2027].  In the recent past, I convened the Level 3 Special Topic module 'Resistance in South Asian Postcolonial Literature' [2019 - 2024] and co-convened the Level 2 'Postcolonial and World Literatures' lecture module. I lecture on the Introduction to the Novel, Post-War Fiction and Poetry, and Postcolonial and World Literatures modules and supervise UG and PG dissertations.

 

Authored book

• South Asian Literature
  
  Khanna, S., & Mirza, M. (in press). South Asian Literature. Routledge.
• Resistance and its Discontents in South Asian Women's Fiction
  
  Mirza, M. (2023). Resistance and its Discontents in South Asian Women’s Fiction. https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526150622
• Intimate Class Acts: Friendship and Desire in Indian and Pakistani Women's Fiction.
  
  Mirza, M. (2016). Intimate Class Acts: Friendship and Desire in Indian and Pakistani Women’s Fiction. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof%3Aoso/9780199466740.001.0001

Book review

• ‘Precarious Beings and Impossible Dreams.’ Review of What Will You Give for This Beauty? by Ali Akbar Natiq.
  
  Mirza, M. (2017). ‘Precarious Beings and Impossible Dreams.’ Review of What Will You Give for This Beauty? by Ali Akbar Natiq. The Book Review, 41(10), 299.

Chapter in book

• The Politics and Poetics of Narrating Blasphemy Allegations in Pakistan
  
  Mirza, M. (in press). The Politics and Poetics of Narrating Blasphemy Allegations in Pakistan. In L. Neti & M. Wan (Eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Postcolonial Law and Literature. Cambridge University Press.
• Diasporic Female Precarity and Agency in Sunjeev Sahota’s The Year of the Runaways
  
  Mirza, M. (2022). Diasporic Female Precarity and Agency in Sunjeev Sahota’s The Year of the Runaways. In B. Schmidt-Haberkamf, M. Gymnich, & K. P. Schneider (Eds.), Representing Poverty and Precarity in a Postcolonial World (pp. 88-102). Brill Academic Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004466395_007
• Four interviews with South Asian diasporic writers: “I ground myself in multiple spaces”: Sehba Sarwar in Conversation with Maryam Mirza”, “Reading, Writing and the Contours of Power: Mridula Koshy Speaks to Maryam Mirza”, “Remapping Canada: An Interview with Mariam Pirbhai”, and “Genres, Languages, Voices: Rukhsana Ahmad in Conversation with Maryam Mirza”
  
  Mirza, M. (2021). Four interviews with South Asian diasporic writers: “I ground myself in multiple spaces”: Sehba Sarwar in Conversation with Maryam Mirza”, “Reading, Writing and the Contours of Power: Mridula Koshy Speaks to Maryam Mirza”, “Remapping Canada: An Interview with Mariam Pirbhai”, and “Genres, Languages, Voices: Rukhsana Ahmad in Conversation with Maryam Mirza”. In C. Lokuge & C. Ringrose (Eds.), Creative Lives: Interviews with Contemporary South Asian Diaspora Writers. Ibidem Press/Columbia University Press.
• “Reading Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things: A Personal Journey”.
  
  Mirza, M. (2021). “Reading Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things: A Personal Journey”. In Moving Arts: Essays on Art and Experience. The 87 Press.
• The Individual and the Collective in Contemporary India: Manju Kapur’s Home and Custody
  
  Mirza, M. (2017). The Individual and the Collective in Contemporary India: Manju Kapur’s Home and Custody. In R. Ciocca & N. Srivastava (Eds.), Indian Literature and the World: Multilingualism, Translation and the Public Sphere (pp. 245-262). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54550-3
• Intimacy across Caste and Class Boundaries in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things
  
  Mirza, M. (2015). Intimacy across Caste and Class Boundaries in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. In J. Misrahi-Barak & A. Joshi (Eds.), Dalit Literatures in India. Routledge.
• Female Space and its Discontents in Shashi Deshpande’s The Dark Holds No Terrors
  
  Mirza, M. (2011). Female Space and its Discontents in Shashi Deshpande’s The Dark Holds No Terrors. In C. Omhovère (Ed.), Perceiving and Representing Space in the English-Speaking World (pp. 81-95). Presses universitaires de Nancy.

Journal Article

• “What’s Gone is Gone”: Partition, Ownership, and Loss in Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand
  
  Mirza, M. (2026). “What’s Gone is Gone”: Partition, Ownership, and Loss in Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand. South Asian Review. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/02759527.2026.2621527
• The Anxiety of Being Australian: Modernity, Consumerism and Identity politics in Michelle de Kretser’s The Lost Dog
  
  Mirza, M. (2020). The Anxiety of Being Australian: Modernity, Consumerism and Identity politics in Michelle de Kretser’s The Lost Dog. Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 55(2), 190-203. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021989418755541
• Serving in the Indian diaspora: The transnational domestic servant in contemporary women’s fiction
  
  Mirza, M. (2019). Serving in the Indian diaspora: The transnational domestic servant in contemporary women’s fiction. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 55(1), 108-120. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2018.1424646
• Ambiguous Pakistani-Muslim Masculinities in the Diaspora: A Study of Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers
  
  Mirza, M. (2017). Ambiguous Pakistani-Muslim Masculinities in the Diaspora: A Study of Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers. South Asian Diaspora, 9(2), 193-206. https://doi.org/10.1080/19438192.2017.1297356
• "An All-weather, All-terrain Fighter": Subaltern Resistance, Survival and Death in Mohammed Hanif’s Our Lady of Alice Bhatti
  
  Mirza, M. (2015). "An All-weather, All-terrain Fighter": Subaltern Resistance, Survival and Death in Mohammed Hanif’s Our Lady of Alice Bhatti. Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 50(2), 150-163. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021989414537287
• Men at Home, Men and Home in Two Anglophone Novels by Indian Women Writers
  
  Mirza, M. (2015). Men at Home, Men and Home in Two Anglophone Novels by Indian Women Writers. Gender, Place & Culture, 23(7), 1061-1070. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369x.2015.1090409
• Female Relationships across Class Boundaries: A Study of Three Contemporary Novels by Women Writers from the Indian Sub-continent
  
  Mirza, M. (2010). Female Relationships across Class Boundaries: A Study of Three Contemporary Novels by Women Writers from the Indian Sub-continent. The Sri Lanka Journal of the Humanities, 36, 11-18.

Newspaper/Magazine Article

• Remembering Bapsi Sidhwa
  
  Mirza, M. (2025, February 8). Remembering Bapsi Sidhwa. Wasafiri.

Other (Digital/Visual Media)

• A Conversation with Dr. Maryam Mirza on Gender and Sexuality in South Asian Literature
  
  Mirza, M. (2026, June 1). A Conversation with Dr. Maryam Mirza on Gender and Sexuality in South Asian Literature. In YouTube [The Khayal Creative Network Podcast].

Other (Print)

• "The New Law". A translation of Saadat Hasan Manto's Urdu short story "Naya Qanoon".
  
  Mirza, M., & Mirza, T. H. (2025). "The New Law". A translation of Saadat Hasan Manto’s Urdu short story "Naya Qanoon". The Bombay Literary Magazine.