Colonialism Modernity and Literature: A View from India

Contents: Introduction: Viewing Colonialism and Modernity through Indian Literature/Satya Mohanty. I. Views from Below: Comparing Literary Perspectives: 1. Critical Realisms in the Global South: Narrative and Transculturation in Senapati’s Six Acres and a Third and Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude/Jennifer Harford Vargas. 2. Views from Above and Below: George Eliot and Fakir Mohan Senapati/Paul L Sawyer. 3. Two Classic Tales of Village India: The Realist Epistemology of Chha Mana Atha Guntha and Godaan/Himansu S Mohapatra. 4. The Emergence of the Modern Subject in Oriya and Assamese Literatures: Fakir Mohan Senapati and Hemchandra Barua/Tilottama Misra. 5. The Indigenous Modernity of Gurajada Apparao and Fakir Mohan Senapati/ Velcheru Narayana Rao. 6. Why Don’t You Speak? : The Narrative Politics of Silence in Senapati, Premchand and Monica Ali/Ulka Anjaria. II. The Many Contexts of Six Acres and a Third: 1. The Representation of Women and Gender Relations in Six Acres and a Third/Claire Horan. 2. Rediscoveringg Ramachandra Mangaraj and Historicizing Senapati’s Critique of Colonialism/Gaganendra Nath Dash. 3. The Tradition-Modernity Dialectic in Six Acres and a Third/Debendra K Dash and Dipti R Pattanaik. Appendix: Fair Without, Foul Within: Bahire Rongsong Bhitare Kowabhaturi/Hemchandra Barua. List of Contributors. Index.

This is an innovative volume of essays situated at the intersection of at least three multi-disciplinary fields: postcolonial and subaltern theory; comparative literary analysis, especially with a South Asian and transnational focus; and the study of ‘alternative’ and ‘indigenous’ modernities. This definitive new work grounds the political insights of postcolonial and subaltern theory in close textual analysis and challenges readers to think in new ways about global modernity and local cultures. Focusing in part on Fakir Mohan Senapati’s ground-breaking late-19th century Oriya novel Chha Mana Atha Guntha (Six Acres and a Third), the volume’s comparative method suggests to readers non-ethnocentric and non-chauvinist ways of studying Indian literature. It de-emphasises regional literary histories, especially the construction of hoary pasts and glorious traditions, to focus instead on cross-regional clusters of historical and cultural meaning. The essays attempt in-depth interpretations instead of merely celebrating authors and their works. They challenge readers to think in new ways about global modernity and local cultures.