Contents: Preface. 1. Nirad C. Chaudhuri: dual identity/T.M.J. Indra Mohan. 2. Mulk Raj Anand's untouchable: a triumph of narrative skill/U.S. Rukhaiyar. 3. Humanistic note: a study in Mulk Raj Anand's The old woman and the cow/Ramesh Kumar Gupta. 4. Self-discovery, growth and attainment: the rising graph of Rosie in R.K. Narayan's The Guide/S. Rajalakshmi. 5. The chance encounter in Talkative man and The World of Nagaraj/Anisha Ali. 6. Spirituality syndrome and cultural exclusiveness in R.K. Narayan/Anvar Sadhath. 7. Malgonkar's balancing acts of Gandhian ideals in A Bend in the Ganges/Shiv Kumar Yadav. 8. Storm in Chandigarh: crisis in human values/Abha Sharma. 9. Bhattacharya's novels: the portrayal of poverty and hunger/A.N. Prasad. 10. Balan's sense of alienation, dislocation and salvation in Kasthuri Sreenivasan's The Light from Heaven/Usha Rani. 11. Coming together: shoes and the seductions of rational love in Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy/Kerstin W. Shands. 12. Ironic vision in Kamala Markandaya's Nectar in a Sieve/U.S. Rukhaiyar. 13. Fasting, feasting: a study in desires and dreams (un) fulfilled/Usha Rani. 14. A clash between male Chauvinism and existential concerns in Anita Desai/Devika. 15. The God of Small Things: a note on Roy's sociological imagination/Ashwini Kumar Vishnu. 16. Women novelists of the post-colonial India/Veena Singh. 17. Nationalism in pre-independence Indian poetry in English/Rajendra P. Lokhande. 18. A.K. Ramanujan's conception of the self/Saranga D. Baral. 19. The contours of individualism in the poetry of Kamala Das/Bhabani S. Baral.
"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.
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." (jacket)
