Ruth Maxey's study South Asian Atlantic Literature 1970–2010 is a work that reaches out across nations to scholars researching contemporary fiction and film created by South Asians in the UK and the USA. The inclusion of films in a thematic literary study on diasporic South Asian writing is significant in that the films are examined as narratives rather than as forms of art in which visual rhetoric is as important as themes, narratives, and characterization. Ruth Maxey's thematic clusters focus on contemporary areas of interest in postcolonial South Asian studies. This book includes a critical introduction on “Framing South Asian Writing in America and Britain 1970–2010,” followed by four chapters that are structured as self-contained essays, followed by a conclusion. The four chapters are on “Home and Nation in South Asian Atlantic Literature,” “Close Encounters with Ancestral Space: Travel and Return in Transatlantic South Asian Writing,” “Brave New Worlds? Miscegenation in South Asian Atlantic literature,” “‘Mangoes and Coconuts and Grandmothers’: Food in Transatlantic South Asian Writing.” Maxey's conclusion offers insights into “The Future of South Asian Atlantic Literature.”

In the introduction, Ruth Maxey points out that this study seeks to close the gap in transatlantic studies on the subject of literary depiction of patterns of South Asian migration (18). Her study covers prose forms, some drama, key films, and selected television programs (19). Maxey views the themes of home and nation, racial mixing, travel and return, food and eating as topics worthy of detailed research and discussion. Among these themes, home, nation, ancestral space, and South Asian food culture have become recognizable motifs in South Asian literary and visual media artifacts. Maxey's observation that the subjects of racial mixing and return to the ancestral land are underresearched subjects is both valid and timely as these two areas of study are relevant to South Asian demographics in the UK and the USA. With regard to the potential complexity of transatlantic South Asian literature, Maxey offers a valuable observation by stating that the short-term popularity of some contemporary works has prevented writers and publishers from moving beyond certain recurring themes (21).

In her four chapters developed as individual thematic essays, Maxey moves from discussions of British South Asian writings, films, and television programs to comparisons with South Asian American artifacts that contain similar themes and characterization. The comparisons show the underlying parallels and contrasts between the British South Asian experience and the South Asian American experience. Maxey includes the histories of immigration in both societies as well as demographic data on the educational attainment and income of South Asians on both sides of the Atlantic. In her conclusion, Maxey points out the steady increase in the publication of creative nonfiction (especially memoirs/life-writing) by South Asians (212–13). She concludes that this trend is likely to continue in the near future (214). The thirty pages of bibliography comprehensively list both primary and secondary sources of current interest for researchers of transatlantic South Asian prose forms and visual media.

The study's title is slightly misleading in that while fiction, creative nonfiction, films, and television programs have been produced in larger quantities than poetry and drama, the two latter genres also come under the umbrella of “South Asian Atlantic literature.” The paradigms of South Asian transatlantic fiction and film are also evident in the poetry and drama. This study leaves out the poetry and offers limited commentary on drama. While Maxey's comparison of South Asian writers and filmmakers in the UK and the USA breaks new ground in demonstrating the specifics of their similarities and differences, it is advisable to view transatlantic South Asian literature as transnational literature, as South Asian writers are sometimes twice migrants, having lived and published in two or more countries. An examination of elements of transnationalism in some of the chapters would have been relevant and timely. Also, the coverage of British and American works by South Asians would have been enriched by allusions to significant literary works by Indo-Canadian and Indo-Caribbean fiction writers who also fall under the geographical location of “transatlantic.” Although revised in the form of a book of literary criticism, the dissertation-like format of the original manuscript remains discernible in the introduction and conclusion.

However, the strengths of this study far exceed its limitations. Ruth Maxey's research methodology exhibits rigor in its comparative analysis of sensitive topics in the many works of fiction and several films under examination. This work provides readers with unbiased discussions of controversial issues related to race, discrimination, and identity. The author's in-depth discussions include the major paradigms of diasporic South Asian literature especially with regard to sociopolitical issues. In conclusion, written in a smooth and flowing prose style, this well-researched study strikes an excellent balance between the emerging canon of South Asian literature in English in the UK and USA and contemporary works that are still in the arena of popular culture.