The essays in this book look at the interaction between English and other Indian languages and focus on the pressure of languages on writers and on each other. Divided into two parts, the first part of the book deals with the pressure that English language has exerted, and continues to exert, in India and our ideas of connectedness as a nation in the ways in which we deal with this pressure. The essays emphasise on the emergence of the hybrid language in the Tamil cultural world because of the presence of English (and Hindi); on the politics of ‘anthologisation’; and how Karnad’s Tughlaq deals with the idea of the nation, looking at its historical location. The second part of the book focuses on Indian English literature and deals with how it interacts with the idea of representing the Indian nation, sometimes obsessively, seen both in poetry and novels. The book argues that the writer’s location is crucial to the world of imagination, whether in the novel, poetry or drama. The world is inflected by the location of the author, and the struggle between the language dominant in that location and English is part of the creative tension that provides energy and uniqueness to writing.

Featuring works by: Rabindranath Tagore, Sarojini Naidu, Premchand (Dhanpat Rai), Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Jibanananda Das, R. K. Narayan, Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, Raja Rao, Lalithambika Antherjanam, Agyeya (Sachchidananda Vatsayan), Umashankar Joshi, Saadat Hasan Manto, Ismat Chugtai, Amrita Pritam, Nissim Ezekiel, Mahasweta Devi, Nayantara Sahgal, Qurratulain Hyder, Jayanta Mahapatra, A. K. Ramanujan, Nirmal Verma, K. Ayyappa Paniker, Arun Kolatkar, U. R. Ananthamurthy, Kamala Das, Keki Daruwalla, Anita Desai, Girish Karnad, Nabaneeta Dev Sen, Adil Jussawalla, Ambai (C. S. Lakshmi), Paul Zacharia, K. Satchidanandan, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Salman Rushdie, Agha Shahid Ali, Namdeo Dhasal, Meena Alexander, Githa Hariharan, Vijay Seshadri, Amitav Ghosh, Raghavan Atholi, Jeet Thayil, Arundhati Roy, Amit Chaudhuri, Sudeep Sen, Arundhathi Subramaniam, S. Sukirtharani.

The Indian subcontinent has produced some of the world's greatest writers, and a body of literature unsurpassed in its sustained imagination, impassioned lyricism and sparkling tragi-comedy. Now Salman Rushdie and Elizabeth West have collected together the finest Indian writing of the last fifty years. Published to coincide with the anniversary of India's independence, it is an anthology of extraordinary range and vigour, as exciting and varied as the land that inspired it. Including works by: Mulk Raj Anand Gita Mehta Anjana Appachana Ved Mehta Vikram Chandra Rohinton Mistry Upamanyu Chatterjee R. K. Narayan Amit Chaudhuri Jawaharlal Nehru Nirad C. Chaudhuri Padma Perera Anita Desai Satyajit Ray Kiran Desai Arundhati Roy G. V. Desani Salman Rushdie Amitav Ghosh Nayantara Sahgal Githa Hariharan I. Allan Sealy Ruth Prawer Jhabvala Vikram Seth Firdaus Kanga Bapsi Sidhwa Mukul Kesavan Sara Suleri Saadat Hasan Manto Shashi Tharoor Kamala Markandaya Ardashir Vakil

This book explores the formations and configurations of British colonial discourse on India through a reading of prose narratives of the 1600-1920 period. Arguing that colonial discourse often relied on aesthetic devices in order to describe and assert a degree of narrative control over Indian landscape, Pramod Nayar demonstrates how aesthetics furnished a vocabulary and representational modes for the British to construct particular images of India. Looking specifically at the aesthetic modes of the marvellous, the monstrous, the sublime, the picturesque and the luxuriant, Nayar marks the shift in the rhetoric – from the exploration narratives from the age of mercantile exploration to that of the ‘shikar’ memoirs of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s extreme exotic. English Writing and India provides an important new study of colonial aesthetics, even as it extends current scholarship on the modes of early British representations of new lands and cultures.

Includes songs by Buddhist nuns, testimonies of medieval rebel poets and court historians, and the voices of more than 60 other writers of the 18th and 19th centuries. Among the diverse selections are a rare early essay by an untouchable woman; an account by the first feminist historian; and a selection from the first novel written in English by an Indian woman.

This Book Presents A Collection Of Essays And Research Papers On Indian English Poetry And Fiction. It Has Been Classified In Two Sections. Section A Comprises Essays On Poets Such As Toru Dutt, Aurobindo Ghose, Krishna Srinivas And Kamala Das. Section B Contains Essays On Indian English Novelists Like R.K. Narayan, Raja Rao, Bhabani Bhattacharaya, Anita Desai, Khushwant Singh, Kamala Markandaya, Shashi Deshpande, Shobha De, And Arun Joshi. The Research Papers In The Book By Some Distinguished University Teachers And Professors Of English Posted In Indian Universities Cover A Brief Critical Survey Of Indian English Poetry And Novel Since Their Birth Upto The Present Day. A Brief Survey Of Indian English Religious Poetry And Humanistic Trends In Contemporary Indo-English Fiction Has Also Been Included.

Out Of Evil Cometh Good. One Of The Important Consequences Of Colonialism In India Is The Birth Of Indian English Literature. The Process Through Which It Developed Had Three Distinct Stages. In The First Stage There Was Admiration And Imitation Of The Western Models. After The First Flush Was Over, A Reaction Set In. That Was The Second Stage, The Stage Of Resentment And Rebellion. This Naturally Led To The Third Stage The One We Are Passing Through The Stage Of Self-Discovery And Self-Assertion. The Writers Now Draw On The Rich Cultural Heritage Of India And At The Same Time Explore Its Contemporary Relevance. A Writer Of An Independent Country Cannot Afford To Lose Touch With Social Reality And He Must Understand, Transcribe And Recreate It In Verbal Artefact. The Task Is Rendered More Difficult Because The Indian English Writers Are Obliged To Write In A Language They Are Not Born Into. But The Writers Have Remarkably Overcome All These Difficulties And, Looking At The Achievements Of The Indian English Writers, It Can Be Definitely Claimed That Indian Writing In English Has Come Of Age And Has Completely Got Over The Anxiety Of Influence. The Nineteen Essays That Constitute This Volume Cover A Wide Range Of Authors And Subjects. Starting With Nirad C. Chaudhuri, One Of The Greatest Thinkers And Most Controversial Writers Of The Last Century, The Essays Shed New Lights On Different Aspects Of The Makers Of Indian English Literature: Mulk Raj Anand, R.K. Narayan, Manohar Malgonkar, Nayantara Sahgal, Bhabani Bhattacharya, Kasthuri Sreenivasan, Vikram Seth, Kamala Markandaya, Anita Desai, Arundhati Roy, A.K. Ramanujan And Kamala Das.Since Indian Writing In English Is Prescribed In Most Of The Universities In India, Both The Teachers And The Students Will Find This Volume Very Useful And Anybody Interested In Indian Writing In English Will Also Find These Luminous Essays Intellectually Stimulating.

Indian English Has Been Universally Accepted As A Unique Style Of Discourse With Its Own Nuances, Giving Expression To Indian Multiculturalism In The Works Of Writers In India Or Those Abroad. Not Only The New Indian Writers In The West, Expatriates, Second And Third Generation Writers, But Also The Classic Authors Like A.K. Ramanujan, Nissim Ezekiel, Mulk Raj Anand, R.K. Narayan, And Bhabani Bhattacharya Are Being Interpreted In The Old New Critical Mode As Well As The Current Critical Styles Of Multiculturalism, Postcoloniality And Diaspora. V.S. Naipaul Is Being Interpreted Not Only As A Caribbean Or British Author But Also A Diasporic Writer Engaged In A Quest For The Indianness Inherited By Him.The Twelve Essays In This Book Deal With The Various Aspects Of Indian English Writing In The Light Of The Current Critical Trends. The Essays, Originally Published In Reputed Research Journals Or Critical Anthologies Over The Years, Are: Contemporary Indian English Literary Scene, Multiculturalism And Indian (English) Literature, Indian English Prose Writing, A.K. Ramanujan S Credo, Nissim Ezekiel S Credo, Soul-Stuff And Vital Language: The Poetry Of P. Lal, Mulk Raj Anand On The Novel, Anand S Vision Of War And Death In Across The Black Waters, Bhabani Bhattacharya S A Dream In Hawaii: A Study In Postcolonial Spirituality, Philosophers And Lovers: Paradox Of Experience In Shiv K. Kumar S The Bone S Prayer, Technique In The Short Stories Of Tagore, And From Darkness To Light: V.S. Naipaul S Indian Odyssey. The Article On Naipaul Has Been Written Especially For This Book.

This volume provides an analytic survey of the literature produced as a consequence of the long history of Britain's rule in India. It stretches from the establishment of British hegemony in the 1750's to the achievement of Indian independence in the postcolonial era almost two centuries later. Writing India concludes with a chapter on Salman Rushdie in order to suggest the complex relation of continuity as well as conflict between colonial and postcolonial constructions of India.