It is said that literature is a reflection of society, the author as well as his/her literature is the product of it. It is also said that literature is the product of a given milieu and individual sensibility which constitute together a culture entity rooted in the changing traditional value system of people. The writer, as a human being, is a part and parcel of the society and so, naturally he gets influenced by the atmosphere around him. Therefore the literature coming out through him becomes the manifestation of the cultural, social, spiritual and political scenario in the society. Kamala Markandaya is one of the leading women novelists of India. She has projected the theme of cultural clashes in different dimensions. She has produced several novels to her credit. Her novels find forceful expression of cultural clashes such as conflict between Tradition and modernity, clash between the rural and urban, East-West conflict and conflict between the two different attitudes of life from two diverse races. Kamala Markandaya has brought to the centre her protagonists who are invariably women, and therefore conflicts raised by the novelist relate to women. All the characters in her novels experience troubles and turmoil's in life but they rise above their desperation triumphantly because of their aspiration. It is a fact that Markandaya commands a wide reputation as a creator of readable novels; she has received a wide-ranging recognition and applause both in India and abroad. She has been a subject of serious discussion. But it is very surprising to note that an Indian woman novelist who has got a prominent position in India writing in English has not been able ii to draw the attention of critics and researchers to the extent she deserves. The articles in books and journals by their very nature remain confined to studying her novels as individual works. Book-length studies of Markandaya's novels are only a few. The proposed book will focus its attention on the conflict of nature in the novels of Kamala Markandaya through the discussion of the central characters. It will do its level best to fill in the gap and will attempt to study Markandaya's novels. Shashi Deshpande is one of the prominent writers who in the past two and a half decades established herself as a serious writer. She is undoubtedly an outstanding Indian English novelist who has boldly voiced the issues and sufferings of women in her works. She has projected this aspect of Indian women with more sensitivity and understanding as she was born and brought up in this soil. This work is to analyze about the works of Shasi Deshpandae and sense her to be a Feminist or Humanist. The themes of sexuality and man-woman relationship initially introduced in her stories are discussed which became the subject of full length novels. But they are found not merely the raw material for her novels. Her versatile treatment of women's issues reveals her sensitive nature as a woman writer, and this quality affirms her works as an outstanding contribution to Indian literature in English proving her to be a humanist. Sanjana Antil

Why are you still alive-why didn't you die?' Years on, Sarita still remembers her mother's bitter words uttered when as a little girl she was unable to save her younger brother from drowning. Now, her mother is dead and Sarita returns to the family home, ostensibly to take care of her father, but in reality to escape the nightmarish brutality her husband inflicts on her every night. In the quiet of her old father's company Sarita reflects on the events of her life: her stultifying small town childhood, her domineering mother, her marriage to the charismatic young poet Mahohar.

Shashi Deshpande's latest novel explores the lives of two women, one obsessed with music and the other a passionate believer in Communism, who break away from their families to seek fulfilment in public life. Savitribai Indorekar, born into an orthodox Hindu family, elopes with her Muslim lover and accompanist, Ghulaam Saab, to pursue a career in music. Gentle, strong-willed Leela, on the other hand, gives her life to the Party, and to working with the factory workers of Bombay. Fifty years after these events have been set in motion, Madhu, Leela's niece, travels to Bhavanipur, Savitribai's home in her last years, to write a biography of Bai. Caught in her own despair over the loss of her only son. Madhu tries to make sense of the lives of Bai and those around her, and in doing so, seeks to find a way out of her own grief.

Taken under the wing of an expat teacher for her ambition and talent, Anjali Bose hopes to escape unfavorable prospects and falls in with a crowd of young people in Bangalore, where she endeavors to confront her past and reinvent herself.

Jay'S Life Comes Apart At The Seams When Her Husband Is Asked To Leave His Job While Allegations Of Business Malpractice Against Him Are Investigated. Her Familiar Existence Disrupted, Her Husband'S Reputation In Question And Their Future As A Family In Jeopardy, Jaya, A Failed Writer, Is Haunted By Memories Of The Past. Differences With Her Husband, Frustrations In Their Seventeen-Year-Old Marriage, Disappointment In Her Two Teenage Children, The Claustrophia Of Her Childhood&Amp;Mdash;All Begin To Surface. In Her Small Suburban Bombay Flat, Jaya Grapples With These And Other Truths About Herself&Amp;Mdash;Among Them Her Failure At Writing And Her Fear Of Anger. Shashi Deshpande Gives Us An Exceptionally Accomplished Portrayal Of A Woman Trying To Erase A 'Long Silence' Begun In Childhood And Rooted In Herself And In The Constraints Of Her Life.

“There can be no vaulting over time,” thinks Urmila, the narrator of Shashi Deshpande’s profound and soul-stirring novel. “We have to walk every step of the way, however difficult or painful it is; we can avoid nothing.” After the death of her baby, Urmila finds her own path difficult to endure. But through her grief, she is drawn into the lives of two very different women—one her long-dead mother-in-law, a thwarted writer, the other a young woman who lies unconscious in a hospital bed. And it is through these quiet, unexpected connections that Urmi begins her journey toward healing. The miracle of The Binding Vine, and of Shashi Deshpande's deeply compassionate vision, is that out of this web of loss and despair emerge strand of life and hope—a binding vine of love, concern, and connection that spreads across chasms of time, social class, and even death. In moving and exquisitely understated prose, Deshpande renders visible the extraordinary endurance and grace concealed in women's everyday lives.

Set against the tumult of the 1947 Partition, Manju Kapur’s acclaimed first novel captures a life torn between family, desire, and love The one thing I had wanted was not to be like my mother. Virmati is the eldest of eleven children, born to a respectable family in Amritsar. Her world is shaken when she falls in love with a married man. Charismatic Harish is a respected professor and her family’s tenant. Virmati takes up with Harish and finds herself living alongside his first wife. Set in Amritsar and Lahore and narrated by Virmati and her daughter, Ida, a divorcée on a quest to understand and connect with her departed mother, Difficult Daughters is a stunning tale of motherhood, love, and finding one’s identity in a nation struggling to discover its own. Winner of the 1999 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for best first book (Eurasia Region) and shortlisted for the Crossword Book Award in India.