Volume VI Special Issue V June 2026

Name of Author : Rageshree Das

Title of the paper : Feluda as a Universal Sleuth: A Study in Transcultural Thrill and Detective Logic in Selected Short Stories of Satyajit Ray

Abstract: This paper investigates Satyajit Rays Feluda short stories as an area of detective logic, transcultural thrill, and ethical debate within the Indian and global literary frameworks. By employing a close reading technique and textual analysis of the selected short stories The Golden Fortress and Murder in the Mountains, from The Complete Adventures of Feluda by Satyajit Ray the study examines how Rays narrative technique creates suspense, constructs meaning, and establishes a complex ethical landscape. The study scrutinizes pacing, suspense tactics, motifs, and moral logics, framed exclusively by Homi K. Bhabhas concepts of hybridity, mimicry, and the third space in The Location of Culture 1994. It seeks to uncover how Ray’s bhadralok sleuth subverts Eurocentric genre tropes by navigating Western deductive paradigms through indigenous rationalism, restorative justice, and liminal contexts. Additionally, it also illustrates how Rays Feluda transcends ‌Indian and Bengali boundaries to achieve universality through narrative and ethical complexities, while addressing cultural anxieties in adaptations. This study enriches genre theory, postcolonial critique, and literary studies by situating Feluda within the broader context of local and international detectives. It ultimately emphasises how Feludas moral complexity and transcultural reasoning enrich postcolonial detective fiction and broaden our insights into South Asian modernism as a literary tool.

Keywords : Bhadralok Rationalism, Cinematic Adaptations, Feluda, Homi K. Bhabha, Postcolonial Hybridity, Third Space, Transcultural Suspense

DOI :

Page Number : 194-208