New poetics of postcolonial relations: global genetic kinship in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth and Amitav Ghosh’s The Calcutta Chromosome

Conceptions of genetic kinship have recently emerged as a powerful new discourse through which to trace and imagine connections between individuals communities around the globe. This article argues that, way think represent such connections, discourses relatedness constitute poetics kinship. Discussing two exemplary contemporary novels, Amitav Ghosh’s The Calcutta Chromosome (1995) Zadie Smith’s White Teeth (2000), this further that literary fiction, postcolonial fiction in particular, is uniquely positioned critically engage biomedical global interpersonal relations. novels illuminate amplify concept cultural by aesthetically transcending limits science construct additional West Global South on level metaphor analogy. As both oscillate spatially Indian subcontinent, texts’ representations literal figurative relations become vehicle test reconfigure diasporic identities, well confront Western with alternative forms knowledge. emerging imaginary highlights—evoking recent sociological anthropological work—that meaningful rely biological much interpretations, especially migrant contexts where markers charged conflicting notions connection otherness.