Ashok Rajamani, award-winning author of The Day My Brain Exploded, returns with IMAGINE CARNIVALESQUE, his explosive first book of bold and insightful literary criticism. Uncover the unconscious in South Asian literature through two psychoanalytical essays that deconstruct gender codes and sexuality within Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, Shyam Selvadurai's Funny Boy, and the Hindu epic poem Mahabharata. From Rushdie's manic hunt for feminine rapaciousness, to Selvadurai's proclamations of liberation through same-sex love, to the fiery transgendered battles in India's grandest poem, IMAGINE CARNIVALESQUE vividly explores subcontinental writing and its libidinous secrets of subversion.