Indian Travel Narratives: New Perspectives

Though Indians have been travelling for the last few centuries, documentation of their travels has been scarce and far between. Since the beginning of this century, books and articles on Indian travel writing has become quite conspicuous and the numbers are growing at quite a rapid pace. At present Indian Travel Writing in all its variety has also become an established genre of academic discipline encompassing history, sociology, anthropology, memoirs, adventure tales and many more areas.

This anthology on Indian travel writing contains twenty-three essays that try to cover several new aspects of this protean genre ranging from the eighteenth century to texts written just a few years ago. Divided into five sections, it cuts across boundaries of time and space and enables new interpretations to be made. The individual essays, contributed by reputed scholars in the area as well as young academics researching in this field, cover general overviews, pilgrimages, and different kinds of travel within the country and abroad. Special emphasis has been given to hitherto lesser-known travel narratives pertaining to the North East, and those written in bhasha literatures.