Indian Fiction in English The Festival India, which has just begun and which lasts until November,

is a good time to acquaint oneself with an unusual body of writing. Indian fiction has been originally written in English for nearly two hundred years, so it is not surprising that it should have something for every taste, from romance, and detective and war fiction to serious novels, ossibly the best!"nown Indian novel is #.$., %esani&s All about H. Hatterr, which has acquired the status of a minor classic. The only Indian novel to have been continuous in print in the 'est since its publication in ()*+, it is an astonishing linguistic feat. ,nthony -urgess described its langue as .a sort of creative chaos . . . li"e the English of /ha"espeare, 0oyce and 1ypling, gloriously impure&. The oddest scrapes of philosophy and scholarship are ju2taposed with di33y fights of fancy and poetry to ma"e an e2hilarating boo", reminiscent of a tic"ling whoosh of air from a pric"ed balloon4 the balloon, in this case is Indian philosophy and spirituality. #raham #reene considers 5.1. Narayan to be the greatest living English!language novelist. 6is achievement is generally thought to lie in the purity of his Indian&s vision, rendered in a form which is deceptively simple 7 and therefore almost universally accessible. Narayan began with personal, autobiographical concerns8 The Bachelor of Arts is a distinctly Indian love story4 The English Teacher shows us a man being comforted by spiritualistic visitations after his domestic bliss is destroyed by his wife&s death. The relevance of Indian traditional wisdom to different situations and personalities is e2plored in The Dark Room, Mr. Sampath, The Financial E pert and !aiting for the Mahatma. 6owever, the most orthodo2 statement of an Indian traditional 9"uranic# viewpoint in fiction are found in The Man$Eater of Malgu%i and The &en%or of S'eets. The last two novels especially have enjoyed a tremendous reputation with 'estern critics and readers as a way into some of the mysteries of India. Narayan&s more comple2 and ambivalent novels, The (ui%e and The "ainter of Signs are equally admired by Indian and 'estern readers, and are probably his best fictional wor". :ul" 5aj ,nand made his mar" at about the same time as Narayan as the result of introduction by E. :. Forster. In novels such as )ntouchable and *oolie, which are the

Indian Fiction in English

best of his early wor". ,nand stri"es the note of compassion for the underprivileged for which his wor" is "nown. "ri+ate ,ife of an -n%ian "rince is, as might be e2pected by its theme, his most popular wor", and is from his middle period. The projected multi! volume Se+en Ages of Man promises a portrayal of India changing from the ();<s to the ()=<s, from a feudal and coloni3ed country to a moderni3ing and independent one. :anohar :algon"ar also shows a notable historical sense in portraying the struggle for independence in Ben% in the (anges, though it has relatively poor characteri3ation. In The "rinces, :algon"ar provided amore positive picture of India&s old ruling classes, :algon"ar&s forte is strong traditional plots, and his five novels are always engrossingly readable. 5aja 5ao&s The Serpent an% the Rope may be the best philosophical novel in English to come from India but, for those not philosophically incline, his first novel, .anthapura, is the greater achievement, , marvelous, half!whimsical, half!poetic recreation of an incessant stream of language from a grandmother, it tells the story of the impact of :ahatma #andhi on the woman&s village 1huhwant /ingh&s - Shall /ot Hear the /ightingale is a fictional study of /i"h spirituality, while Train of "akistan shows how partition tore apart the intricate web of relationships that held together a pre!Independence village. of one family. 'oman novelists have made a notable contribution. 5uth rawar 0habvala is, of course, well "nown in -ritain4 for her eight novels and four collections o short stories she won the Neil :. #unn International Fellowship in ()A) and, for Heat an% Dust, the -oo"er ri3e in ()AB. If one of her novels must be singled out for praise the vote will probably go to (et Rea%1 for Battle, which gently moc"s the self!see"ing ambitions and intrigues of middle!class urban Indian s who are all ready for battle 7 with each other and with themselves. The ironic prefatory quotation from the Bhaga+a%gita alerts the reader to the philosophic, moral and social problems of India which are portrayed so well here. ,nita %esai showed with her very first novel, *r1 the "eacock that she is clearly the most linguistically gifted of all Indian English novelists. The novels that followed, &oice >haman Nahal&s A0a%i 9?Freedom&@ is a fuller and more detailed study of the effect of partition on the members

Indian Fiction in English

in the *it1, B1e$B1e Blackbir% and !here Shall !e (o This SummerC >onfirmed this reputation but showed her struggling for fictional form. Fire on the Mountain, which won the Indian National ,cademy of Detter ,ward in ()A+ as well as the 5oyal /ociety of Diterature&s 'infried 6oltby ,ward for the bet regional novel for that year, *lear ,ight of Sa1, which was nominated for the -oo"er ri3e in ()+<, and (ames of T'ilight, her impressive first collection of short stories, constitute her mature wor". Fredy Elbrich, in spite of her unusual name, is an Indian woman4 her hero, the amiable >hief Inspector %esou3a, belongs, li"e 1eating&s Inspector #hote, to the -ombay >I%. 6is nine children and his harridan of a mother!in!law add their charm to three precise and luminous novels, Desou0a "a1s the "rice, S'eet an% Dea%l1 and Desou0a in Star%ust. The first of the Indian 'omen novelists to establish a name, 1amala :ar"andaya, has now written eight potent novels, of which the most memorable is /etar in a Sie+e. The /o'here Man, about an Indian immigrant to -ritain, may hold a special appeal for readers here. Ether novels on Indian immigrants include %ilip 6iro&s A Triangular &ie', 0amila and 5eginald :assey&s The -mmigrants, Marriage. If Indian fiction in English is so good and has been published for nearly two centuries, how is it that it is so little "nowsC Fnli"e ,frica and the 'est Indies, India has had its own flourishing publishing industry for as long as Indians have written in English. These boo"s find peculiar distribution difficulties in the 'est for three reasons. Firstly few Indian publishers advertise in the -ritish press, owing to #overnment restrictions on the spending of scare foreign e2change. /econdly, the boo"s are not formally published in -ritain and are therefore generally not noticed here. Thirdly, although some Indian publishers have assigned sole distributorships, there is only one Indian publisher 9to my "nowledge@ who "eeps to the terms of the agreement, refusing to supply boo"s to the -ritish mar"et through any other distributor. The agreements, moreover, do not seem to provide for review copies or, indeed, even for the copies which must be deposited in accordance with -ritish copyright law. ,fraid that they will be as"ed to deposit such copies at their own cost, distributors do not even ma"e use of 'hita"er&s free listings service in the -oo"seller. and Timeri :urari&s The

Indian Fiction in English

6owever, a steady increasing demand for Indian boo"s since the ()B<s has ensured the growth of Indian boo"shops in -ritain, and titles produced by Indian publishers 7 unless, li"e EF India, they are subsidiaries o -ritish publishers 7 are best obtained from these boo"shops. enguin are the principal -ritish paperbac" publishers with an Indian interest, and Indian titles in hardbac"s have also appeared from most of the major -ritish publishing houses. The most comprehensive single survey of the literature as a whole is 1. 5. /. Iyengar&s -n%ian !riting in English4 an impressive critical discussion of the themes and techniques of the Indian English novel is The T'ice$Born Fiction2 Fma arameshwaran&s A Stu%1 of Representati+e -n%o$English /o+elists and 5. /. /ingh&s -n%ian /o+el in English have useful essays on individual writers4 and several full!length studies have appeared. The most easily obtainable bibliography is 5onald 0. 'arwic"&s -n%ian ,iterature in English3 A *hecklist. /trangely, there are few anthologies of Indian English short stories4 :eena"shi :u"herjee&s ,et4s go Home an% 5ther Stories is perhaps the best volume with which to begin an acquaintance with this fascinating and growing body of fiction. The boo"s mentioned in the te2t should be obtainable from the following boo"shops8 -oo"s from India 9B) #reat 5ussell /treet, Dondon '>(@ which claims to have eleven thousand titles in stoc"4 /oma -oo"s 9G+ 1ennington Dane, Dondon /E((@, and enthusiastic promoter of its boo"s through e2hibitions4 and /ha"ti -oo"house 9*B 6igh /treet, /outhall :iddlese2@. Erient Dongman, the Indian!owned subsidiary of Dongman, does not operate in -ritain through its parent company. It has a mailing address at /angam -oo"s, =( :anchester /treet, Dondon '(. --N :arch ()+;

Indian Fiction in English