The Postmodern Indian English Novel

Postmodernism In Indian English Literature Refers To The Works Of Literature After 1980. If Raja Rao S Kanthapura (1938) Marks Modernism, Salman Rushdie S Midnight S Children (1981) And Nissim Ezekiel S Latter-Day Psalms (1982) Mark Postmodernism In Indian English Literature. In This Book, Dr. Bijay Kumar Das Has Analysed Postmodern Indian English Literature Genre-Wise Poetry, Novel, Short Story, Drama And Autobiography. This Is A Critical History Of Indian English Literature In The Postmodern Period, Meant For Students, Researchers As Well As Teachers Who Seek An Introduction To It.

Winner of the Booker prize and twice winner of the Booker of Bookers, Midnight's Children is "one of the most important books to come out of the English-speaking world in this generation" (New York Review of Books). Reissued for the 40th anniversary of the original publication--with a new introduction from the author--Salman Rushdie's widely acclaimed novel is a masterpiece in literature. Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India’s independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem grows up to learn the ominous consequences of this coincidence. His every act is mirrored and magnified in events that sway the course of national affairs; his health and well-being are inextricably bound to those of his nation; his life is inseparable, at times indistinguishable, from the history of his country. Perhaps most remarkable are the telepathic powers linking him with India’s 1,000 other “midnight’s children,” all born in that initial hour and endowed with magical gifts. This novel is at once a fascinating family saga and an astonishing evocation of a vast land and its people–a brilliant incarnation of the universal human comedy. Midnight’s Children stands apart as both an epochal work of fiction and a brilliant performance by one of the great literary voices of our time.

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Indian English Writing Is A Vast Arena Today. With New Trends Emerging, New Talents Making Their Mark, New Creative And Critical Branches Sprouting In Various Directions, As Well As With The Thematic Varieties, Technical Experiments, And Linguistic Innovations, It Is Now God S Plenty. The Extraordinary Richness And Variety Of Indian Writing Today, Indeed, Pose A Challenging Task For Any Critic Or Anthologist In The Area, Since It Has Become Next To Impossible To Give Any Comprehensive View Or Idea Of This Fast-Growing Literature In Its Totality Within The Compass Of A Single Volume.Still It Remains The Critic S Responsibility As Well As Pleasure To Find The New Authors And Texts Side By Side With The Older And Already Canonized Ones. As Robert Kroetsch, The Canadian Author, Says, We Want The Critic To Find Us Out Our Indian Authors Today Also Should Legitimately Expect The Perceptive-Responsive Critic To Find Them Out. It Is Especially Needed In The Present Case Since The Indian Writers In English Are Still Engaged In The Process Of Writing From Outside The Mainstream, And, Therefore, Are In Serious Need Of The Right Critical Attention And Understanding.It Is Precisely This Situation That Has Been Kept In View In Compiling The Present Anthology Of A Bunch Of Critical Essays On A Cross-Section Of Indian Fiction, Poetry And Drama In English. Quite A Number Of The Texts Discussed In This Volume Have Been Written In Recent Years, Whereas A Few Earlier Texts M.R. Anand S, For Example Have Also Been Included In Order To Help The Reader To View The Spectrum In A Total Perspective. The Critical Range Of This Volume Includes Mulk Raj Anand, Khushwant Singh, Ruth Jhabvala, Anita Desai, Manju Kapur, Amitav Ghosh In Fiction, A.K. Ramanujan, Nissim Ezekiel, Kamala Das In Poetry, Girish Karnad S Tuglaq And Hayavadana In Drama.The Articles Included In The Present Volume Will Allow Us A Glimpse Into Some Of The Representative Authors, Texts, And Trends.Students, Teachers, Scholars, As Well As The Common Reader Will Find The Book Useful And Interesting.

This Anthology Puts Together Some Of The Finest Articles That Discuss Themes Which Frequently Figure In Current Literary Debates Centring Round Post-Independence Indian English Fiction: Reinterpretation Of Indian History In Artistic Terms, Re-Evaluation Of Indian Culture, Postcolonial Representation Of India In Fiction, Nation And National Identity, Diasporic Indian Experience And Intertextuality. It Thus Attempts A Critical Stock Taking Of The Indian English Fiction Of The Fifty Years Since Independence From These Fresh Perspectives.Almost All The Important Novelists Of The Three Generations Have Been Studied In This Anthology: Raja Rao, R.K. Narayan, Manohar Malgonkar, Anita Desai, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Arun Joshi, Kamala Markandaya, Shashi Deshpande, Khushwant Singh, Gita Mehta, Vikram Chandra, Mukul Kesavan, Arudhati Roy And Gita Hariharan.Contributing To This Volume Are Some Of The Best Scholars Like Ragini Ramachandra, Antony Johae, Rama Kundu, M. Mani Meitei, D. Maya, Corrado Micheli And Christopher Rollason.

The literary canon implies the evaluation or estimation of certain literary texts as the most important during a particular time. The canon is not merely a set of texts; it is a set of standards, evaluative procedures and values. Belonging to a canon confers a guarantee of literary greatness. A canon is formed, by a particular group, to channelize cultural hegemony over others, or, can be constructed, by a governed group, to bring about cultural symmetry. The rise of diverse literatures in English in different parts of the world after the colonial rule of England was the consequence of an urge to articulate a cultural equilibrium or an urge to strike back. The process of canon formation is also a focused and bigoted act, and is always carried out to accomplish certain self-centred objectives. It is commonly accepted that canon formation is executed to accomplish or naturalize certain ideological functions. In the sphere of Indian English literature, Indian English fiction after the end of the 1980s has emerged as a new “canon”. This book looks into the process of literary canon formation in Indian universities, and examines such fiction as an alternative literary canon and as an anti-imperialistic response to the British literary canon. The book ascertains the anti-imperialistic design involved in forming the canon of post-1980 Indian English fiction, examines the gradual emerging trends in such fiction, and discerns the role of language, culture, and native ethos in the formation of a canon. It also differentiates post-1980s Indian English fiction from British fiction, bhasa fiction, and even from pre-1980s Indian English fiction.

This first book-length critical analysis of the full range of novels written between 1854 and today by American Indian authors takes as its theme the search for self-discovery and cultural recovery. In his introduction, Louis Owens places the novels in context by considering their relationships to traditional American Indian oral literature as well as their differences from mainstream Euroamerican literature. In the following chapters he looks at the novels of John Rollin Ridge, Mourning Dove, John Joseph Mathews, D'Arcy McNickle, N. Scott Momaday, James Welch, Leslie Marmon Silko, Louise Erdrich, Michael Dorris, and Gerald Vizenor. These authors are mixedbloods who, in their writing, try to come to terms with the marginalization both of mixed-bloods and fullbloods and of their cultures in American society. Their novels are complex and sophisticated narratives of cultural survival - and survival guides for fullbloods and mixedbloods in modern America. Rejecting the stereotypes and cliches long attached to the word Indian, they appropriate and adapt the colonizers language, English, to describe the Indian experience. These novels embody the American Indian point of view; the non-Indian is required to assume the role of "other". In his analysis Owens draws on a broad range of literary theory: myth and folklore, structuralism, modernism, poststructuralism, and, particularly, postmodernism. At the same time he argues that although recent American Indian fiction incorporates a number of significant elements often identified with postmodern writing, it contradicts the primary impulse of postmodernism. That is, instead of celebrating fragmentation, ephemerality, and chaos, these authors insistupon a cultural center that is intact and recoverable, upon immutable values and ecological truths. Other Destinies provides a new critical approach to novels by American Indians. It also offers a comprehensive introduction to the novels, helping teachers bring this important fiction to the classroom.

The Oxford Studies in Postcolonial Literatures series offers stimulating and accessible introductions to definitive topics and key genres and regions within the rapidly diversifying field of postcolonial literary studies in English. It is often claimed that unlike the British novel or the novel in indigenous Indian languages, Anglophone fiction in India has no genealogy of its own. Interrogating this received idea, Priyamvada Gopal shows how the English-language or Anglophone Indian novel is a heterogeneous body of fiction in which certain dominant trends and recurrent themes are, nevertheless, discernible. It is a genre that has been distinguished from its inception by a preoccupation with both history and nation as these come together to shape what scholars have termed 'the idea of India'. Structured around themes such as 'Gandhi and Fiction', 'The Bombay Novel', and 'The Novel of Partition', this study traces lines of influence across significant literary works and situates individual writers and texts in their historical context. Its emergence out of the colonial encounter and nation-formation has impelled the Anglophone novel to return repeatedly to the question: 'What is India?' In the most significant works of Anglophone fiction, 'India' emerges not just as a theme but as a point of debate, reflection, and contestation. Writers whose works are considered in their context include Rabindranath Tagore, Mulk Raj Anand, RK Narayan, Salman Rushdie, Nayantara Sahgal, Amitav Ghosh, Arundhati Roy, and Vikram Seth.