The volume offers a pioneering intervention in global literary and cultural studies by tracing representations of disability across the entire twentieth century—from early modernist literature to late postcolonial and popular cultural forms. Unlike most existing works that focus primarily on twenty-first-century narratives, this volume provides rare historical depth and a globally inclusive perspective.

Bringing together literary, cinematic, regional, and mythic narratives from Western and non-Western contexts—including Indian literature and film—the book constructs a comparative framework that illuminates how disability is embedded in diverse historical, cultural, and political settings. Covering texts from Kafka and Faulkner to Odia fiction and Indian partition narratives, it spans early modernism, interwar poetics, post–World War II trauma narratives, and late-century cultural media such as cinema, comics, autobiography, and myth.

Balancing academic rigour with accessibility, this book is an essential resource for scholars, students, and educators interested in literature, culture, and critical disability studies. 

A Cambridge-Nehru scholar for her Ph D, Christel R Devadawson is Professor, Department of English, University of Delhi. She has served as Head, Department of English, St Stephen’s College from 2000-2001, and as Head, Department of English, University of Delhi from 2015-2018. Her most recent publications in the field of Visual Studies are, ‘AI, Allegory, and the Cinematic Multiverse,’ Phalanx 15, November 2023, and ‘Visual Advocacy, the Gandhi icon, and the Shaping of Contemporary India,’ in David Bulla(ed) Gandhi: Advocacy, Journalism, and the Media, New York: Peter Lang, 2022. She is the author of Out of Line: Cartoons, Caricature and Contemporary India (2014), and Reading India, Writing England (2005).

Anil K. Aneja is a Professor in the Department of English and Director of the Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Delhi. His academic interests include Twentieth Century Fiction, Disability Studies, Human Rights Literature, and more. He has delivered over a hundred conference presentations and published widely in his fields. Actively engaged in the disability sector for nearly 30 years, he has held various national and international roles. He was awarded the National Award for the Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities in 2014 and the Delhi State Award for Social Work in 2019.

Nidhi Vats is an Associate Professor in the Department of English, University of Delhi, with over 13 years of teaching experience. Her areas of expertise include Indian English Literature, Indian Mythology, Language Studies, Folklore Studies, and Disability Studies. She has published extensively, including three books. Her latest book, Foregrounding Disability Studies in Literature and Visual Arts, was published by Oxford University Press.