Contents: Foreword. Preface. Acknowledgements. I. Indian Writing in English: 1. A post-modern, provocative, metropolitan Mother India : Aurora Zogoiby of Rushdie's The Moor's Last Sigh. 2. The presence of the past: Shashi Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel as historiographic metafiction. 3. Journalist as artist: Khushwant Singh's fictional art. 4. The Distorted and distortive mirror of Kamala Markandaya -- a critique of A Handful of Rice. 5. Salman Rushdie -- The Post Colonial Painter of Modern India : A Preamble. 6. Kuppan in Sir Lawley's Suit: a note on R.K. Narayan's language. 7. Mythical and archetypal patterns in Kalki's Sivakamiyin Sabadam. 8. "Making a Born-Blind see the colours of the Rainbow"--notes on translating some short stories of T. Janakiraman. II. American Literature: 9. "Consonant Symphonies : John Steinbeck in the Indus Valley. 10. "Wherever They's a Fight...." John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath as the Iliad of the Dispossessed. 11. Dialogistic strategies in Steinbeck's Cannery Row Novels. 12. Restructuring American studies : John Steinbeck's reconfiguration of America as an indicator. 13. Eros and Narcissus into Marx : Unnatural erotic formations as social protest in American Fiction. 14. Who's Afraid of the Sidney Sheldons? III. General: 15. The Carnivalesque vision in Shakespeare : some readings from Twelfth Night and Henry IV. 16. Two allegorists of compassion: a comparative study of John Steinbeck and T. Janakiraman.

"A collection of essays written during different periods on a variety of writers, texts and based on more than one critical approach, this book attempts to show how a critical introspective exercise results in intellectually stimulating and academically challenging papers. These essays cover a wide range of topics from Indian Writing in English, American Literature and British Literature and also on general areas of interest such as reading novels. Writers who are discussed in this volume are Salman Rushdie, Shashi Tharoor, R.K. Narayan, Kamala Markandaya, and Khushwant Singh from contemporary Indian writers in English and regional writers such as Kalki and T. Janakiraman from Modern Tamil Literature. Rushdie's 'love-hate' relationship with India is discussed in one essay, while his controversial portrayal of modern Indian leaders and matinee-idols in his novel The Moor's Last Sigh is analysed from a post modern perspective in a companion piece. Shashi Tharoor is revealed as a distinguished predecessor of Rushdie in his The Great Indian Novel. John Steinbeck, the Nobel-prize winning American novelist is the subject of a few essays that perceptively analyse certain remarkable aspects of his fiction, especially the Indian influence on his thinking and writing. Among Steinbeck's novels discussed are The Grapes of Wrath, To a God Unknown, The Cannery Row Novels, viz., Tortilla Flat, Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday." (jacket)