Anuradha Roy’s The Earthspinner (2021) presents art not merely as an aesthetic practice but as a powerful means of expressing identity, memory, belonging, and conflict. Focusing on Elango, a potter whose life and creative vision are shaped by caste, religious divisions, love, social exclusion, and artistic aspiration, the novel explores the uncertain position of the artist within a society governed by family hierarchies and strict cultural boundaries. Elango’s commitment to clay becomes a mode of self-definition through which he resists the limitations imposed upon him by caste and social convention. At the same time, the novel’s second narrative element, represented by Sara, demonstrates how art and memory contribute to the rebuilding of identity across geographical and temporal boundaries. Her engagement with pottery reconnects her with her past and with Elango.
This article examines how artistic creation functions as resistance and as a process of identity formation in The Earthspinner, drawing on Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of cultural hybridity, Stuart Hall’s understanding of identity as a process of becoming, Charles Taylor’s theory of recognition, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s reflections on marginalised voices. The study argues that Roy presents art as a dialogic space in which characters negotiate their relationships with society, history, place, and the other. Elango’s clay work becomes a language through which he asserts dignity and individuality, while Sara’s relationship with pottery allows her to recover a divided connection with her past. The ruin of Elango’s clay horse suggests an assault upon identity, memory, creativity, and the possibility of coexistence. The paper concludes that the Protagonist reconceptualises art as both a resistant practice and an identity-making process, demonstrating that creative expression can challenge social exclusion while enabling individuals to imagine and retrieve the self.