Annotation This volume surveys 200 years of Indian literature in English. Written by Indian scholars and critics, many of the 24 contributions examine the work of individual authors, such as Rabindranath Tagore, R.K. Narayan, and Salman Rushdie. Others consider a particular genre, such as post-independence poetry or drama. The volume is illustrated with b&w photographs of writers along with drawings and popular prints. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

The Making of Indian English Literature brings together seventeen well-researched essays of Subhendu Mund with a long introduction by the author historicising the development of the Indian writing in English while exploring its identity among the many appellations tagged to it. The volume demonstrates, contrary to popular perceptions, that before the official introduction of English education in India, Indians had already tried their hands in nearly all forms of literature: poetry, fiction, drama, essay, bio­graphy, autobiography, book review, literary criticism and travel writing. Besides translation activities, Indians had also started editing and publish­ing periodicals in English before 1835. Through archival research the author brings to discussion a number of unknown and less discussed texts which contributed to the development of the genre. The work includes exclusive essays on such early poets and writers as Kylas Chunder Dutt, Shoshee Chunder Dutt, Toru Dutt, Mirza Moorad Alee Beg, Krupabai Satthianadhan, Swami Vivekananda, H. Dutt, and Sita Chatterjee; and historiographical studies on the various aspects of the genre. The author also examines the strategies used by the early writers to indianise the western language and the form of the novel. The present volume also demonstrates how from the very beginning Indian writing in English had a subtle nationalist agenda and created a space for protest literature. The Making of Indian English Literature will prove an invaluable addition to the studies in Indian writing in English as a source of reference and motivation for further research. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

In nineteenth-century Europe and North America, an organized vegetarian movement began warning of the health risks and ethical problems of meat eating. Presenting a vegetarian diet as a cure for the social ills brought on by industrialization and urbanization, this movement idealized South Asia as a model. In colonial India, where diets were far more varied than Western admirers realized, new motives for avoiding meat also took hold. Hindu nationalists claimed that vegetarianism would cleanse the body for anticolonial resistance, and an increasingly militant cow protection movement mobilized against meat eaters, particularly Muslims. Unearthing the connections among these developments and many others, Julia Hauser explores the global history of vegetarianism from the mid-nineteenth century to the early Cold War. She traces personal networks and exchanges of knowledge spanning Europe, the United States, and South Asia, highlighting mutual influence as well as the disconnects of cross-cultural encounters. Hauser argues that vegetarianism in this period was motivated by expansive visions of moral, physical, and even racial purification. Adherents were convinced that society could be changed by transforming the body of the individual. Hauser demonstrates that vegetarians in India and the West shared notions of purity, which drew some toward not only internationalism and anticolonialism but also racism, nationalism, and violence. Finding preoccupations with race and masculinity as well as links to colonialism and eugenics, she reveals the implication of vegetarian movements in exclusionary, hierarchical projects. Deeply researched and compellingly argued, A Taste for Purity rewrites the history of vegetarianism on a global scale.