Indian Writing in English (Novel) Colonial, Post Colonial & Diaspora - 21784541 - 2024 - 04!13!11 - 41

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Fiction
( Colonial, Post Colonial & Diaspora)
1. Bankim Chandra Chatterji(1838-94)

2. Toru Dutt(1878)
3. Romesh Chunder Dutt
4. K S Venkataramani (1891-1951)
5. Mulk Raj Anand
6. R K Narayan
7. Raja Rao
8. K A Abbas
9. Dhan Gopal Mukherji
10. D F Karaka
11. Bhabani Bhattacharya (1906-
12. Manohar Malgonkar (1913-
13. Khushwant Singh (1918-
14. Balachandra Rajan
15. G.V.Desai
16. Arun Joshi(1939-
17. Chaman Nahal (1927-
18. Ruth Prawar Jhabvala
19. Kamala Markandaya
20. Nayantra Saghal
21. Anita Desai
22. Ruskin Bond
Dr S .K. Sharma, Asst. Prof. (English) Mobile: 8000166081
English for Asst. Prof., NET/SET, RPSC Grade I, II, III (Download Lingua Franca app from playstore)
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23. Ved Mehta

24. Shiv K Kumar
25. Amit Chaudhari
26. Vikram Seth
27. Rohinton Mistry
28. Salman Rushdie
29. Amitav Ghosh
30. Shashi Tharoor
31. Boman Desai
32. Makarand Paranjape
33. Firdaus Kanga
34. I. Allan Sealy
35. Upamanyu Chatterjee
36. Pankaj Mishra
37. Raj Kamal Jha
38. Shashi Deshpande
39. Anjana Appachana
40. Gita Hariharan
41. Arundhati Roy
42. Suniti Namjoshi
43. Manju Kapur
44. Gita Mehta
45. Jumpa Lahiri
46. Bharti Mukherjee
47. Indira Ganeshan
48. Meena Alexander

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49. Kiran Desai

50. Nirad C Chaudhuri
51. Attia Hosain
52. VS Naipaul
53. Rama Mehta
54. Agha Sahid Ali
55. Chitra Divakaruni
56. Anita Rau Badami
57. Santa Rama Rau
58. Anita Nair
59. Shobha De
60. Suniti Namjoshi
61. Shauna Singh Baldwin
62. Sujata Bhatt

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Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838-94)
 Rajmohan’s Wife: A Tale of Love and Rebellion (1864)

 First Indian novel in English
Two major themes

1. The role of women in 19th century India as they struggle against oppression.
2. The symbolic representation of the new spirit of India striving to assert itself
over patriarchal and colonial control.
 Matangini, the protagonist falls in love with her brother-in-law, Madav
Ghose (Husband of her sister-in-law — Hemangini) . She opposes her
husband wrong doings. She is sent to her father’s house. She died young.
 Rajmohan — An abusive husband of Matangini
 Village — Radhaganj, on the banks of Madhumati ( Now in Bangladesh)
 Story of three families
 1. Mathur – Zamindari background
 2. Madhav– Zamindari background
 3. Rajmohan
 Mathur — Negative character
Toru Dutt
 Binaca or The Young Spanish Maiden (1978) — A love story set in

England.
 The first novel by Indian woman
Ramesh Chunder Dutt

 The Lake of Palms : A Story of Indian Domestic Life ( 1902)
Theme: Widow Remarriage
 The Slave Girl of Agra, an Indian Historical Romance ( 1909)
Set in Mughal period
K S Venkataramani (1891-1951)
1. Murugan, The Tiller
2. Kandan, the Patriot : A Novel of New India in the Making ( 1932)

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Mulk Raj Anand (1905-2004)
 Born in Peshawar
 Anand has narrated the story of his upbringing in the autobiographical —
Apology for Heroism (1946)
 He founded the art magazine “Marg” in 1946.
Novels
 1. Untouchable(1935)
 2. Coolie ( 1936)
 3. Two Leaves and a Bud (1937)
 4. The Village ( 1939)
 5. Across the Black Water ( 1941)
 6. The Sword and the Sickle ( 1942)
 The Village, Across the Black Water &The Sword and the Sickle — Lal
Singh trilogy. All written in England.
 7. Big Heart ( 1945)
 8. Seven Summers ( 1951)
 9. The Private Life of an Indian Prince (1953)
 10. The Old Woman and the Cow ( 1960)
 11. The Road (1963)
 12. Death of a Hero ( 1964)
 13. Little Plays of Mahatma Gandhi ( 1991)
 14. Nine Moods of Bharata : Novel of a Pilgrimage ( 1998)
Autobiographies
 Seven volumes autobiographical project called ‘Seven Ages of Man’ but

only four could be completed.
 1. Seven Summers ( 1951)

 2. Morning Face ( 1968) — SA Award
 3. Confessions of a Lover ( 1976)
 4. The Bubble ( 1984)
 In above all the four Krishan Chander is protagonist.
 Conversations of Bloomsbury ( 1981)

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 Pilpali Sahab ( 1985)
Untouchable (1955)
 Preface wrote by E M Forster (After rejecting 19 published). Forster

said ‘ Avoiding rhetoric and circumlocution, it has gone straight to the
heart of its subject and purified it’
 Bakha, a sweeper
 It covers the events of a single day in the life of the low caste boy, Bakha,
in the town Bulashah.
 Three hopes of Bakha
 1.Christian
 2.Machine
 3. Mahatma Gandhi
 Sohini ( sister) raped by priest Kalinath
 Charat Singh — Hockey player
 Colonol Hutchinson — British.
Coolie (1936)
 Edwin Muir calls it a ‘ Character novel’

 Munoo
 It is a pathetic odyssey (Bombay to Shimla) Munoo, an orphaned village
boy from the Kangra Hills (Bilaspur) who set out in search of a
livelihood.
 His several roles — a domestic servants — a factory worker and a
rickshaw-puller.
 Meets Mainwaring in Shimla where he becomes rickshaw-puller, dies of
TB in the end.
Two Leaves and a Bud (1937)

 Gangu
 The locale is her tea-plantation (Macpherson Tea Estate) in Assam to
which Gangu, a poor Punjabi peasant, is lured by fabulous promises.
 British attitude towards Indian imperialistic as in the case of Reggie
Hunt.
 Plantation workers are exploited by British and Indian superiors.

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 Gangu is killed by a British official whom who dares to stop in the act of
raping his daughter.
Village
 He rebels against village mores and runs away and joins an army.
Across the Black Waters

 Lal Singh joins army and fights on behalf of Britain against Germans in
France.
The Sword and the Sickle

 The title was given to Anand by George Orwell.
 Return from German prison spends time which communists and ending
up in prison.
The Big Heart (1945)

 Ananta , a young coppersmith called ‘Big Heart’ owing to his generosity.
 The theme of the novel is the conflict between hereditary coppersmith
and the capitalists.
 It is a novel about a village of artisans in Amritsar District in the village
1940s whose livelihood is destroyed by the establishment of a factory
producing copper utensils.
 Raila in his madness kills Ananta, hitting his head against a machine
repeatedly.
 The story ends with the machine emerging the winner over human.
The Private Life of an Indian Prince (1953)

 It deals with the abolition of the princely states system in India.
The Old Woman and the Cow (1960)

 Only novel with female protagonist.
 Subtitle : Gauri
 The ‘Cow’ is Gauri, a simple peasant girl forsaken by her husband,
Panchi and sold to rich merchant by her mother.
 Kesri — Aunt of Panchi
 It is a story of a meek gentle obedient girl turning into an independent
and confident modern woman character. She says — “ If I am a curse on
you, I will go away…. And if you strike me again, I will hit you back.”

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 Gauri symbolizes the strength and purity of Sita. In the Ramayan a

washer man doubt about Sita. Panchi says, “Tell me the truth, bitch …
what is the proof of your purity.
 In her final statement she says, “They are telling him that Ram turned out
Sita because everybody doubted her chastity during her stay with
Ravana! …I am not Sita that Earth will open up and shallow me. In shall
just go out and be forgotten him”.
The Road — Character Bhikhu similar to Bakha
Death of a Hero (1963)

 It is a short novel on a Kashmir freedom fighter Maqbool Shewrwani.
R K Narayan (1906-2001)
 Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami

 Born in Madras ( now Channai, Tamil Nadu)
 Narayan was encouraged by Graham Greene.
 His style is simple and humorous
 The novel of R K Narayan which was called “ A book in ten thousand ‘
by Graham Greene is — Swami and Friends
 R K Narayan is compared to William Faulkner in fictional town and
depiction of humour and pathos.
 His short stories are compared to Guy de Maupassant because of his
ability to compressed narrative.
Novels
 1. Swami and Friends ( 1935)

 2. The Bachelor of Arts (1937)
 3. The Dark Room ( 1938)
 4. The English Teacher (1945) — Grateful to Life and Death (in USA)
 5. Mr Sampath ( 1948)
 6. The Financial Experts ( 1952)
 7. Waiting for the Mahatma ( 1955)
 8. The Guide ( 1958) — S A Award in 1960
 9. The Man-Eater of Malgudi (1961)
 10. The Vendor of Sweets ( 1967)

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 11. The Painter of Signs ( 1977)

 12. A Tiger for Malgudi (1983)
 13. Talkative Man ( (1986)
 14. The World of Nagraj ( 1990)
 15. Grandmother’s Tale ( 1992)
Non-fiction
 My Dateless Diary ( 1960)
A collection of autobiographical essays
My Days (1974)
 It is an autobiographical work by Narayan
 It starts with his childhood spent in his grandmother’s home in Chennai.
Mythology
 Gods, Demons and Others ( 1964)
 The Ramayana ( 1972)
 The Mahabharata ( 1978)
Short Stories
 Malgudi Days ( 1942)
 An Astrologer’s Day and Other Stories (1947)
 Lawley Road and Other Stories ( 1956)
 A House and Two Goats ( 1970)
 Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories ( 1985)
The Antidote — Story

 In this story author explains the role of superstition, astrologer,
astronomy, horoscope in the life of human beings and in particular is
portrayed through the life of Gopal.
Swami and Friends (1935)

 Delightful account of Swami ( Swaminathan) and his friends
 Mani (Dada)
 Shankar ( most intelligent)
 Sonu ( Moniter)
 Samuel ( Pea)
 Rajan ( SP’s son)
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 Cricketers mentioned — Jack Hobbs, Donald Bradman, Duleep, Maurice

Tate
The Bachelor of Arts (1937)

 Chandran — Protagonist
 Mohan ( Chandran’s friend)
 Sushila ( wife)
 Malti ( Girl friend)
The English Teacher (1945) : Grateful to Life and Death

 Dedicated to Narayan’s wife Rajam
 Autobiographical
 Krishna and Sushila and their Leela
 Sushila dies and Krishna starts talking to his wife’s spirit.
 Entire story ends with the quote he felt “ a moment of rare immutable
joy.”
Mr Sampath
 The printer of Malgudi
 First part dealing with the publication of a newspaper and centered on Mr
Sampath.
 Second part on movie production and centered on Mr Srinivas
 Sampath’s affair with a heroine, caught entirely in the charm of the
heroine and ultimately loss of the lady, wealth, fame and peace.
The Financial Expert

 Graham Green wrote the introduction to it.
 It tells the story of the rise and fall of Margayya, the financial expert.
 Five parts similar to Elizabethan five acts drama.
 Theme — Lust for money
Waiting for the Mahatma; A Novel of Gandhi

 Sriram and Bharti
 Love story of Sriram and Bharti amidst the tragedy of India’s partition in
1947 and Gandhi’s death in 1948.
 Bharti is compared to Portia.
Guide (1958)
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 SA Award in 1960
 Raju, Rosie, Marco, Velan
 Village Mangal where Raju ( Sanyasi) undertakes fast, on the 11th day of
the fast Raju falls doen exhausted.
“ It’s raining in the hills’
Man-eaters of Malgudi (1961)

 Vasu — A taxidermist ( Bhasmasur)
 Natraj — Narrator, Printer of Malgudi
 Kumar — An elephant which was brought from Mempi Hills by Natraj,
for medical treatment.
 Novels show that evil is self-destructive.
“Every demon carries within him, unknown to himself, tiny seeds of self-
destruction.’
The Vendor of Sweets (1967)

 Jagan — sweet vendor
 He says “ Conquer taste, and you will have conquered the self’
 Mali — Jagan’s son
 Grace — Mali’s wife
 It explores the possibility of meeting East and West. ( Mali and Grace)
 Jagan is a traditional one, he does not let Mali engage in things that are
against the tradition and it creates conflict between both of them. Main
theme — Generation gap.
 Mali wants to be a writer. Mali leaves for America to study Creative
Writing. He wants to establish story-writing machine factory.
 Mali is caught by the police for driving under the influence of Alcohol.
Jagan says —
“ A dose of prison life is not a bad thing. It may be just what he needs
now.’ Jagan about Mali
The Painter of Signs (1977)

 Raman — Painter of signs
 Daisy— A young woman involved in family planning campaigns, hires
Raman to make a signboard for her office.
Tiger for Malgudi (1983)

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 Narayan decided to write this book when he saw a bookmark with a

picture of tiger that said ,” I’d have to get into a good book.’
 Told by a tiger in the first person. The tiger recounts his story of capture
by circus owner, but he never tried to escape.
 A tiger captured to the circus — kills trainer known a ‘ the Captain’ —
tiger is a recaptured voluntarily by a monk — Monk realizing that he is
going to die — donates this elderly tiger to the local zoo.
 Raja — A tiger
 Captain — the owner of Grand Malgudi Circus
 Master — A monk in Malgudi
Grandmother’s Tale (1992)

 The book is about Narayan’s great grandmother who is forced to travel
far and wide in search of her husband and to extract her husband from the
hands of his new wife.
 Cowife
Raja Rao (1909- 2006)
 Born in Karnataka
 “We cannot write like the English. We should not. We cannot write only
as Indians. …..our method of expression therefore has to be a dialect
which will some day prove to be as distinctive and colourful as the Irish
or the American” ( Preface to Kantapura)
 “Language is alien, and the spirit is your own and this you can’t do in an
alien language.” ( Preface to Kantapura)
Fiction
 1. Kantapura (1938)
 2.The Serpent and the Rope ( 1960) — SA Award
 3. The Cat and Shakespeare : A Tale of India ( 1965)
 4. Comrade Kirillov ( 1976)
 5. The Chessmaster and His Moves ( 1988)
Short Story Collections

 1. The Cow of the Barricades (1947) — Theme of Gandhism, the story ‘
A Client’ is the part of this collection.
 2. The Policeman and the Rose ( 1978)
 3. On the Ganga Ghat ( 1989)— Benares, the holy city

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Kantapura (1938)
 Written in France
 It covers the history of whole decades of 1920s and ends with Gandhi-
Irwin pact in 1931.
 Narrator — Achakka
 Women formed ‘ Sevika Sangh’
 Kantapura follows the technique of Puran — Narration + Description +
Reflection
 Kantapura has to do with Karma.
 Ultimately villagers of Katapura had to leave Knatapura and settle in
another place Kasipura.
“ There’s neither man nor mosquito left in it”
 Jayaramachar — He narrated a Hari Katha based on Gandhi and his
ideals.
 Kenchamma— presiding diety of the village
 River — Himavathy
 Village divided in five quarters
 Skiffington Coffee Estate
 Moorthy — Protagonist
 Rangamma — rich educated widow, supporter of Moorthy
 Waterfall Venkamma — Rangamma’s sister-in-law. Against Moorthy
The Serpent and the Rope (1960)
 SA Award, Semi- autobiographical novel, Technique from Vedas

 Ramaswami and Madeleine
 Theme:
 1. Disintegration of marriage
 2. Quest of self-knowledge
 3. East- West encounter
 The serpent stands for Appearance or illusion or Maya and this sansar
and rope for reality or truth or Braham or the absolute.
 Based on Sankara’s ( Sankaracharya) metaphor of illusion and reality.
 Only Guru can save us from this illusion or ignorance.
 Time around 1950 and story moves between India, France and England.

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 The Serpent and the Rope explores philosophical links between

Hinduism, Buddhism and the Cathari of medieval Provence.
The Cat and Shakespeare (1965)
 Subtitle — A Tale of Modern India

 It talks about Bhakti Marg and based on Upnishad.
 It is a ‘philosophical comedy’ and its setting is provided by famine in
1942.
 It is a story of two friends —
 1. Govindan Nair
 2. Rama Krishna Pai — Narrator
 Govindan Nair’s boss Boothanlinga Iyer dies of heart failure as the cat
jumps suddenly on his bald head.
 Nair’s symbol of Cat is drawn from Ramanujacarya’s philosophy of
Modified Non-dualism — according to which Man can save himself not
through knowledge, but through self-surrender.
 In the earlier version (1959) its title was ‘The Cat’ Shakespeare was
added in later version (1965) because several things connect it with
Shakespeare.
 ‘The mousetrap’ in Hamlet, Nair’s parody of ‘To be, or not to be’, style
mixture of Vicar of Wakefield and Shakespeare.
Comrade Kirillov (1976 )
 Kirillov- Irene relationship

 Kirillov is actually Padmanabha Iyer, an Indian intellectual. His name
Kirillov is after the name of character in Dostoevsky’s Possessed’
 Kirillov marries Irene — a Czech girl.
 The narrator for the most part ‘R’ — may be Raja Rao.
The Chessmaster and his Moves (1988)

 The Chessmaster is ‘God’ and his moves are subtle.
Bhabani Bhattacharya (1906-1988)
His novels
 1. So Many Hungers ( 1947)

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 2. Music for Mohini ( 1952)

 3. He Who Rides a Tiger ( 1954)
 4. A Goddess Named Gold ( 1960)
 5. Shadow from Ladakh ( 1966) — SA Award in 1967
So Many Hungers
 Kajoli — protagonist of the novel a peasant girl.
 Set against the background of the ‘Quit India’ movement and Bengal
famine of early 40s.
 Major Character :
 Rahoul: Son of Samendra Basu. He wants to join Independence
Movement but his father sends him away to England for research.
 Samerendra Basu — A lawyer living in Calcutta
 Devta ( Gandhian figure)
 Described as ‘ Modern fable of India at the time of Independence.
 Theme — Hunger for food and freedom is the key to the theme of the
novel.
Music for Mohini

 Bhattacharya tells the story of a Calcutta born Brahmin girl, Mohini a
popular radio artist, who married to Jayadev, a scholar and a writer with
his roots in his village, Behula.
He Who Rides a Tiger

 The novel tells the story of Kalo, a poor blacksmith, who is jailed for
stealing a bunch of bananas, becomes a Sadhu after returning and thrives
on fraud.
 Thematic similarity with Narayan’s Guide.
Shadow from Ladakh (1966)

 Setting: India at the time of the Chinese invasion of 1962.
A Dream in Hawaii (1978)

 Bhattacharya returns to the theme of East-West encounter, this time in
Hawaii.
Bhattacharya’s two collections of short stories

 1. Indian Cavalcade ( 1948)

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 2. Steel Hawk ( 1968)
Manohar Malgonkar (1913-2010)
 He was an army officer.
Novels
 1. The Sea Hawk : Life and Battles of Kanhoji Angrey

 2. Distant Drum
 3. A Combat of Shadows ( 1962)
 4. The Princes ( 1963)
 5. A Bend in the Ganges ( 1964)
 6. Spy in Amber ( 1971)
 7. The Devil’s Wind ( 1972) — On the life of Peshwar Nana Sahib
 8. Bandicoot Run (1982)
 9. The Garland Keepers ( 1987)
 8 and 9 are spy stories dealing with military intelligence
 10. Cactus Country (1992) — Background Bangladesh Liberation
Movement — Indo-Pak war of 1971.
 Distant Drum — Story of army life
Combat of Shadows (1962- )
 Title and epigraph of this novel is from ‘Bhagvad Gita’ ‘ Desire and
aversion are opposite shadows……..”
 Henry Winton, the young British Manager of an Assam Tea Garden, —
responsible for the death of Indian Shikari and a Eurasian— ultimately
pays for both these deaths with his own life.
The Princes (1963)

 Narrator — Abhayraj, the crown prince of Begwad.
A Bend in the Ganges (1964)
 Setting partition

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 Title and epigraph from Ramayan:

“ At the bend in the Ganges, they paused to take a look at the land they
were leaving.”
 Scene shifts from India to the Andamans
 Gyan Talwar — In favour of Gandhi’s non-violence
 Debi-dayal and Shafi Usman — In favour of violence
Khushwant Singh (1915- 2014)

 Born in Panjab
 His parents moved to Delhi when he was young, leaving him in the care
of his grandfather.
 His grandmother is the model for “The Portrait of a Lady”, one of his
first stories, and central character (Sabhrai) of “ I Shall Not Hear the
Nightingale” ( 1959) .
 Here “I” is Sabhrai.
I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale (1959) —

 The novel derives its title from the reply of old mother Sabhrai to her
son’s assurance that after Independence, once more the Nightingales will
sing. She says, “ I Shall not hear the Nightingale”
 It is a story of two families — One Sikh and the Other Hindu.
 It is a fine chronicle of life in a Sikh community in the period 1942-43.
 It covers the period from April, 1942 to April, 1943.
 I Shall not hear the Nightingale — Buta Singh, official working with
British, his son Sher Singh ( rebellion of foreign master)
 Sher Singh’s mother — Sabhrai
Train to Pakistan (1956)
 It was first entitled “Mano Majra”. ( American edition 1956)

 Partition novel
 “ The fact is, both sides killed. Both shot and stabbed and speared and
clubbed. Both tortured. Both raped.”
 Novel is divided into four parts
 1. Dacoity

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 2. Kalyug
 3.Mano Majra
 4. Karma
 Juggat Singh — Protagonist
 Hukum Chand —Magistrate
 Nooran — Daughter of Mullah Imam Baksh and beloved of Jugga.
 Haseena — Teen- aged prostitute
Delhi (1989)
 Singh’s invention of Bhagmati, a bisexual whore (eunuch) as the
objective correlative of City of Delhi.
 It is a story of a journalist fallen in bad times and his relationship with a
hijra (eunuch) named Bhagmati.
 Singh’s longest novel. Sprawls from 13th century Muslim conquerors to
the anti-Sikh rioting following the assassination of Indra Gandhi in1984.
Ek Chadar Maili Si (1967)

 Book by Rajinder Singh Bedi (Urdu Writer). The unusual story of
woman compelled to marry one whom she brought up as her own son.
 It was translated into English as “ I Take this Woman” by Khushwant
Singh.
Balchandra Rajan ( 1920-2009)
 Realism and fantasy

 Novels
 1. The Dark Dancer ( 1959)
 2. Too Long in the West (1961)
The Dark Dancer
 Dark Dancer title— Shiva, the god of both destruction and creation
 Krishnan, on his return from England finds himself torn between his love
for British Cynthia and his loyalty to Kamala, his wife.
 East- West confrontation

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Too Long in the West (1961)
 Nalini, a south Indian girl, who returns from an American university to

face the problem of choosing husband.
 Publish and Adv. “Unprecedented paragon will marry whoever deserves
her”.
 Parody of the ancient Hindu practice of Swayamvara.
Govindas Vishnoodas Desani (1909-2000)
 Indian writer born in Nairobi, Kenya
All About H. Hatter (1948)
 The adventure of an Anglo- Malay man in search of wisdom and

enlightenment from the seven sages of India. Hatter, son of European
merchant seaman and a Malaysian woman.
 Here H stands for ‘Hindustaanwalla’.
 This novel was revised and republished in 1972 with the introduction by
Anthony Burgess.
 Narrative technique — Stream of consciousness
 It was the first attempt to break the pure English and mix it with oriental
colloquial English. That’s why Salman Rushdie acknowledges Desani as
his precursor in the ‘Chutnification’ of Indian English.
 It is the eccentric and inventive novel using most of the tricks of the
postmodern fiction.
 It is a farce comedy.
 Salman Rushdie appreciated it and considered it to be the precursor to
The Midnight’s Children.
 Rushdie compares Desani with Sheridan.
Hali (Play) (1950) — His prose poem

 Preface written by E M Forster
Arun Joshi (1939-1993)
Theme: Alienation

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Novels
 1.The Foreigner ( 1968)
 2. The Strange Case of Billy Biswas ( 1971)
 3. The Apprentice ( 1974)
 4. The Last Labyrinth ( 1981) — SA Award
 5. The City and the River ( 1990)
 Joshi deals with three aspects of the theme of alienation—
 1. In relation to humanity at large
 2.In relation to society around
 3. In relation to self
The Foreigner (1968)

 Sindi Oberoi is a born foreigner — a man alienated from all humanity.
The Strange Case of Billy Biswas

 Alienation of protagonist (Billy Biswas) from the higher middle-class
society in which he is born.
 Tells the story of a US returned Indian named Billy Biswas.
The Apprentice (1974)

 Alienation from self
 Rathor, a minor Government official
The Last Labyrinth (1981)

 Theme : alienation
 Protagonist : Som Bhaskar
 His wife : Geeta
 Geeta saves him from committing suicide.
 Som feels restless as he hears cry continuous audible only to his ear: ‘I
want, I want’.
 He turns to different types of women for relief but all in vain. He realizes
that labyrinth of annihilation but Geeta saves him from committing
suicide.
Chaman Nahal (1927-2013)
 Born in Sialkot ( Pakistan)

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 He is known for his novel Azadi (1975), which is set on India’s

independence and her partition. He is also known for his depiction of
Mahatma Gandhi as a complex character with human failings.
Novels
 1. My True Faces ( 1973) — First novel

 Kamal Kant, whose wife Malati has left him, goes in search of her
throughout Delhi and its outside.
 2. Azadi ( 1975) — SA Award in 1977

 Partition novel
 Migration of Lala Kashi Ram, a Sialkot grain merchant and his family to
India at the time of partition in 1947.
 Trilogy dealing with Indian history during the 30 years between the
return of Gandhi from South Africa in 1915 and Independence in 1947.
 1. The Crown and the Loincloth ( 1981)
 2.The Salt of Life ( 1990)
 3. The Triumph of the Tricolour ( 1993)
 These three novels, along with earlier Azadi , form an Indian Quartet on
the model of Paul Scott’s Raj Quartet. ( Raj Quartet — About the
concluding years of the British Raj in India)
Ruth Prawer Jabvala (1927-2013)
 Born in Germay to Jewish parents.

 American British- German novelist
 Married an Indian architect and lived 24 years in India.
Her Novels
 1. Esmond in India ( 1958)

 2. A New Dominion ( 1973)
 3.Heat and Dust (1975) — Booker
 4. In Search of Love and Beauty ( 1980)
 5. Get Ready for Battle
 ‘Get Ready for Battle’ title derives from ‘The Gita’.
 She is the only person to have won both a Booker and an Oscar.
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Heat and Dust
 A woman travels to India, to find out more about her step-grandmother,

Olivia. Throughout the use of flashback reader come to know about
Olivia. She has relation which Nawab and becomes pregnant with
Nawab’s baby. This causes scandal in the town of Sitapur. She (Olivia)
then resides in an unnamed town (Town X) for her remaining years. The
novel ends with the present-day narrator (whose name is not mentioned)
also becoming pregnant, deciding to spend her years in Town X, just as
Olivia did.
 Jhabvala herself has declared that she should not be considered an
‘Indian writer but as one of those European writers who have written
about India’.
Kamla Markandaya (1924- 2004)
 Insider – outsider
 Born in Mysore. After independence she moved to London.
 Pseudonym — Kamla Purnaiya
 Married name — Kamala Taylor
 Focus — Connection between Indian and English characters
 Novels
 1.Nector in a Sieve ( 1954)
 2. Some Inner Fury ( 1956)
 3. A Silence of Desiree ( 1960)
 4. Possession : A Novel ( 1963)
 5. A Handful of Rice ( 1966)
 6. The Coffer Dam ( 1969)
 7. The Nowhere Man ( 1972)
 8. Two Virgins ( 1973)— Lalitha and Saroja
 9. The Golden Honeycomb (1977) — Historical novel
 10. Pleasure City ( 1982) — Published in US under the title Shalimar
 11. Bombay Tiger ( 2008) — Posthumously published
Nectar in a Sieve (1954)
 Subtitle : A novel of Rural India

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 Compared with Pearl S Buck’s ‘ The Good Earth’

 Rukmani — Narrator, central character
 The story of her hard peasant life illustrates the truth of Coleridge’s line,
‘Work without hope draws nectar in s sieve
And hope without an object cannot live.”
 In the novel, Rukmani comments, “Change I had known before, and it
had been gradual. But the change that now came into my life, into all our
lives, blasting its way into our village, seemed wrought in the twinkling
of an eye.’
 Rukmani and Nathan — couple — a large tannery is built in the
neighboring village — it destroys their life — Rukmani and Nathan
struggle to feed their children and to pay the rent on the land that gives
them life. Although matters continue to worsen, they quietly resign
themselves to ever-increasing hardships — flood, famine, even death —
and cling to their hopes for a better future.
 Dr. Kennington ( Kenny) an itinerant English doctor helps Rukmani. At
the end, Rukmani goes to live with her youngest son, now a doctor at the
hospital Kenny has built.
 Ira or Irawaddy — first child daughter of Rukumani and Nathan.
 Kunthi — Villain of the novel, village prostitute.
 Puli — Adopted child of Rukumani.
Some Inner Fury
 It highlights the differences between English and Indian cultural values

focusing on material/ spiritual differences.
 Mira — an Indian
 Richard — an Englishman
A Silence of Desire
 Sarojini, the protagonist has a tumor, visits as swami for faith healing.
Sarojini’s spiritual faith in the swami helps her bear her pain and illness.
 Title taken from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Possession –

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 The ‘Possession’ title refers both to both women’s desire to own the man,
and to his state of being ‘possessed’ by a foreign identity and values.
 Lady Caroline Bell discovers Valmiki’s talent of painting, takes him with
her to England. But Valmiki comes back to India. He choose his earlier
life of poverty (spiritual life) over material life in England.
Handful of Rice (1966)
 Theme of Poverty — the exploitation of the poor by the rich, and the
takeover of small business by big business.
 Ravi, son of a poor villager, goes to city to earn livelihood, falls in love
with Nalini, a tailor’s daughter, works with his future father-in-law, but
their business fall down because they are unable to complete with big
retail houses — Ravi joins with mob to loot the government-owned rice
godowns but unable to take even a handful of rice, Ravi’s failure to do
violence ( fail to throw brick on shop) is symbolic victory of Gandhian
non-violence.
The Coffer Dams (1969)

 It shows technological modernization of India at the cost of
disenfranchising (snatching the rights) tribal people.
Pleasure City (1982)
 A multinational corporation comes to a sleepy fishing village on the

Coromandal coast to build a holiday resort, Shalimar, the pleasure city.
 An old father, his elder son who scorns education, and Rikki, his adopted
son, the hero of the novel, who has been educated by missionaries.
 Markandaya’s novel establishes connection between Indian and English
characters, on her faith in a ‘human brotherhood’ that transcends cultural
barriers, especially those of class, race and religion.
Anita Desai (1937 –
 The Desais have four children, of whom one Kiran Kesai, Booker Prize
winner.

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 People dissatisfied with their lives in modern society are common in

Anita Desai’s fiction.
 Anita Desai confessed that, “ She feels about India as an Indian, but she
thinks about it as an outsider.’
 Desai’s first three novels—
 1. Cry, the Peacock ( 1963)

 Maya and Gautam
 The novel depicts the character of a love-hungry Maya. The peacock’s
cry Pia, Pia, seems to her as she cries to a lover. The title of the novel
describes her ardent desire for love.
 Maya, married and advocate (Gautam). Gautam has little regard for her
emotions as reasons and arguments are his forte.
Voices in the City (1965)
 Depicts the miserable plight of Nirode (protagonist) , Monisha and Amla

in the city of Calcutta.
 The novel is divided into four parts, dominated as Nirodha, Monisha,
Amla and last — Mother.
 Calcutta is the locale in the novel.
 Three siblings — one brother (Nirode) and two sisters Monisha and
Amla.
 Monisha, Nirode’s sister, who suicides at the last by burning herself alive
in the bathroom.
 3. Bye-Bye, Blackbird ( 1968) — Divided into three parts-

 1. Arrival
 2. Discovery and Recognition
 3. Departure
 It portrays the plight in London immigrants in London.
In Custody (1984), Clear Light of the Day, and Fasting, Feasting — All
were shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
 Fire on the Mountain — Sahitya Academy Award
 Her novels
 Fire on the Mountain ( 1977)
 Clear Light of the Day ( 1980)
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 In Custody (1984)
 Baumgartner’s Bombay (1988)
 Journey of Ithaca (1995)
 Fasting Feasting (1999)
 The Zig Zag Way (2004)
 The Artist of the Disappearance ( 2011)
Ruskin Bond (1934 - )
 An Indian author of British descent

 His novels
 1. The Room on the Roof — first novel
 2. Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra ( 1991)— SA Award — A collection of
short stories which cover his life from childhood to adulthood.
 3. A Flight of Pigeons ( 1978) — Novella
 4. The Blue Umbrella ( 1980)

The Room on the Roof
 The novel revolves around Rusty, an orphaned 17 year old Anglo-Indian

boy living in Dehradun. Due to his guardian, Mr Harrison’s strict ways
he runs away from his home to live his Indian friends.
A Flight of Pigeons
 The story is set in 1857, and is about Ruth Labadoor and her family (
who are British) who take help of Hindus and Muslims to reach their
relatives when the family’s patriarch is killed in a church by the Indian
rebels.
Shiv K. Kumar
Novels
 1.The Bone’s Prayer ( 1979)
 2. Nude Before God ( 1983)
 3. River with Three Banks : The Partition of India : The Agony and the
Ecstasy ( 1999)
Amit Chaudhuri (1962- )

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 Born – Calcutta
Novels
 1. A Strange and Sublime Address ( 1991)
 2. Freedom Song ( 1998)
 3. . Anew World (2000) — SA Award
 He follows particularly on the contemporary turmoil facing middle-to-
upper-class Bengalis.
Freedom Song (1998)
 The novel examines the aftermath of independence by representing

Hindu- Muslim tensions, communist struggles and the influence of
economic changes within people’s lives.
 Set against the background of the post-Babri Masjid demotion.
Vikram Seth (1952 - )
 Vikram Seth bought and renovated the house of the Anglican poet,
George Herbert, near Salisbury, England, in 1996.
Novels
1. The Golden Gate : A Novel in Verse (1986)
2. A Suitable Boy (1993)
3. An Equal Music (1999)
Poetry
1. Mappings (1980)
2. Beastly Tales from Here and There (1992) — Children book
consists of 10 stories about animals.
The Golden Gate – SA Award
 A Novel in verse
 Composed of 590 onegin stanzas ( sonnet written in iambic tetrameter)
 Inspired by Pushkin’s ‘Eugene Onegin’.
 Setting — California ( San Francisco)
 Dedicated to Timothy Steele

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Suitable Boy (1993)
 Search of Mrs Rupa Mehra, for a suitable bridegroom for her daughter
Lata. Her search ends successfully when Lata finds Harash Khanna, a
young tanning expert quite suitable.
 Depicts friendship of four families — the Mehras, the Kapoors, the
Chatterjis ( Hindu) and the Khans ( Muslim)
An Equal Music (1999)
 Title drawn from Donne ( Sermon preached by Donne )

 Narrative is set entirely in the West, and all the characters are European.
 The plot concerns Michael, a professional violinist, who never forgot his
love for Julia, a pianist he met as a student in Vienna.
 A recurring element throughout the plot is the pair performance of
Beethoven’s piano Trio Opus No.3, which they first perform in their
college days.

Rohinton Mistry (1952)
 Indian-born Canadian writer.

 Born in Bombay, India, a Parsi family
 First three novels were shortlisted for Booker.
 His novels are told from the perspective of Parsis, and explore themes of
family life, poverty, discrimination, and the corrupting influences of society.
Novels
1. Such a Long Journey (1991)
2. A Fine Balance (1995)
3. Family Matters ( 2002)
 All the above three are shortlisted for Booker.
Short Story :
 Tales from Firozsha Baag (1987) also published as ‘ Swimming Lessons

and Other Stories from Firozsha Baag’ (1989) ( 11 stories) — Parsi
dominated apartment
Such a Long Journey –

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 It was withdrawn from the University of Mumbai’s English syllabus after

complaints from the Maharashtrian politician Aditya Thackeray due to the
language used against Bal Thackeray and some remark about Maharashtrain.
 Protagonist - Gustad Nobel, a clerk, a member of Parsi community
 His Wife – Dilnavaz and three children — Sohrab Noble, Darius Noble and
Roshan Noble
 The novel not only follows Gustad’s life, but also India’s political turmoil
under the leadership of Indira Gandhi.
 The ‘ Long’ ( and hard) ‘journey’ is the life of middle class Parsi clerk (
Gustad Noble) whose life is disturbed when his best friend is involved in a
bank fraud and his friend dies in mysterious circumstances in prison.This
event is based on the notorious ‘ Nagarwala Case’ during the regime of
Indira Gandhi.
Fine Balance –
 The fine balance between hope and despair

 Set in unidentified city in India initially in 1975 and later in 1984 during the
turmoil of The Emergency.
 Book is critical of Indira Gandhi and he calls her simply ‘ The Prime
Minister’.
 The book concerns of four characters
 Diana, Ishvar, Omprakash, Maneck
 This novel begins with epitaph from Balzac’s Le Pere Goriot to remind the
reader, “ This tragedy is not fiction’ All is true’.
Family Matters – Yezad
 It is a story of an old Parsi widower, Nariman Vakeel who lives with his two
stepchildren, Jal and Coomy, and suffers from Parkinson’s disease.
 He was forced to live with his daughter Roxana and her husband Yezad.
 Yezad’s scheme goes disastrously wrong; his boss is murdered and he ends
up unemployed.
 It is about the struggle to maintain integrity and honesty in the face of
economic hardship.

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Salman Rushdie (1947- )
 Born and brought in Bombay

 “My writings and thoughts have … been as deeply influenced by Hindu
myths and attitudes as Muslim ones.” ( Imaginary Homelands :404)
His novels
1. Grimus (1975)
2. Midnight’s Children (1981)
3. Shame (1983)
4. The Satanic Verses (1988)
5. Haroun and the Sea Stories (1990)
6. The Moor’s Last Singh (1995)
7. The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999)
8. Fury (2001)
Latest Novels
1. Shalimar the Clown (2005)
2. The Enchantress of Florence (2008)
3. Luka and the Fire of Life (2010) — A sequel to Haroun and the Sea
Stories
4. 2 Years 8 Months 28 Nights (2015)
5. The Golden House (2017)
6. Quichottte (2019)
7. Victory City ( 2023)
Midnight’s Children
Booker — 1981
Best of Booker twice
1. 1993 ( 25th)
2. 2008 (40th)
Non-Fiction
Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism: 1981-1992

 Collection of essays written during 1981-1992. This collection also
includes ‘Commonwealth Literature Does not Exist’. Imaginary

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Homelands propounds anti-essentialist view of place. It is divided into

six sections.
 Rushdie says ‘Human being do not perceive things whole, we are not
gods but wounded creatures, cracked lenses, capable of fractured
perceptions”. (Imaginary Homelands)
 The primary theme of ‘ Imaginary Homelands’ is leaving one’s land and
adopting to the land migrated.
Grimus (1975)
 Science fiction
 Flapping Eagle, a young Native American receives immortality by
drinking a magic fluid, wanders 777 years, 7 months and 7 days in search
of her lost sister, and finds her on a Mediterranean island controlled by
Grimus a magician.
 It is an evidence of Salman Rushdie’s fascination with Panchtantra and
Aesop’s Fable.
Midnight’s Children (1981)
 Booker in 1981, Best of Booker twice

 Magic realism
 Narrative opens with the life of Saleem’s grandfather.
 Saleem born on 15 August 1947. Same day 1001 children born out of
which 420 dies.
 Theme : identity and its plight in a hostile world.
 Salim Sinai was born with telepathic powers.
 Shiva ‘ of the Knees’ and Parvati called ‘ Parvati witch’ are two children
with notable gifts and roles in Saleem’s story.
 Novel in three books.
 Saleem later becomes involved in Indra Gandhi-proclaimed Emergency
and her son Sanjay’s ‘cleansing of the Jama Masjid slum’.
 A political allegory concerns India.
Shame (1983)
 Concerns Pakistan
 Protagonist — Omar Khayyam Shakil

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 Magic Realism — Miraculous birth of Omar and the Sudden

transformation of his wife into a white panther.
 Zulfikar Al Butto and Lia-ul-Haq
 Story takes place in a town ‘Q’
 Subject — Struggle between military and civilian rule in Pak and culture
of shame and honour which oppress women.
The Satanic Verses (1988)
 Novel opens with an account of Magic Realism

 Two Indians fall from an aeroplane on to the English coast and land
unhurt. They are Gibrel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha.
 Daughters of Devil — Lat Manat Uzza
 Mahound

Haroun and the Sea Stories
 Children book
 Dedicated this book to his son
 It is a phantasmagorical story that begins in a city so old and rumours that
it has forgotten its name.
 ‘There was once in the country of Alifbay and sad city’
 Haroun’s father Rashid Khalifa is a master story-teller. But his wife runs
away with another man and he suddenly finds that his story telling
powers are also gone. He regains them after great struggle and
adventures.
The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999)
 First attempt to deal with the theme of love.

 It is a variation on Orpheus and Eurydice myth.
 Vina, a singer, is the woman the ground beneath whose feet is
worshipped by her love, Ormus Cama.
The Moor’s Last Sigh (1995)
 It traces four generations of the narrator’s family. The narrator is Moraes

Zoborby.(Moor)

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 Moor, the protagonist grows twice as fast as his biological age. Idea is
borrowed from Ginter Grass, shoes protagonist, Oskar in ‘The Tin Drum
refuses to grow after the age of three.
 The title is taken from the story of Boabdil, the last Moorish King of
Granada.
 Historical figures — Boabdil’s surrender, demolition of Babri Masjid,
1993 Bombay Bomb blast terrorist Dawood Ibrahim, Bal Thakeray and
the Shiv Sena.
Fury (2001)
 Rushdie depicts contemporary New York City as the epicenter of

globalization and all of its tragic flaws.
The Enchantress of Florence (2008)
 Central theme is the visit of a Eurpoean to the Mughal emperor Akbar’s

court and his claim that he is a long lost relative of Akbar, born of an
exiled Indian princess and an Italian from Florence.
2 Years 8 Months and 28 Days (2015)
 The title is a reference to the 1001 nights Scheherazade spent telling

stories in the Persian story of One Thousand and One Nights.
Quichotte (2019)
 Inspired by Cervantes’ classic novel Don Quixote.

 Quichotte is a metafiction that tells a story of an addled Indian American
man who travels across America in pursuit of a celebrity television host
with whom he has become obsessed.
Victory City (2023)
Joseph Anton: A Memoir ( 2012)
 An autobiographical book by Salman Rushdie

 Homage to Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekov.

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The Free Radio — A story written by Rushdie

 It is about the sterilization campaign launched by India’s ruling regime
during the Emergency period. (1975-1977)
 The title of the story refers to an incentive, the gift of a transistor-radio
the health department gave to those undergoing the sterilization surgery
or vasectomy.
Amitav Ghosh (1956 - )
 Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta.

 His famous works include
 1. The Circle of Reason ( 1986)
 2. The Shadow Lines ( 1988)
 3. In An Antique Land ( 1993)
 4. The Calcutta Chromosome ( 1996)
 5. The Glass Palace ( 2000)
 6. The Hungry Tide ( 2004)
Ibis Trilogy
 1. Sea of Poppies ( 2008)
 2. River Smoke ( 2011)
 3. Flood of Fire ( 2015)
 Ibis Trilogy — Historical fiction set in the first half of the 19th century. It
deals with the trade of opium between India and China run by East India
Company and trafficking of coolie to Mauritius. Ibis is a name of ship
where most of the characters meet for the first time.
An Antique Land (1993)

 During his Ph.D., Ghosh conducted field work in the village of
Lataifa,Egypt, and experience that subsequently became the basis for his
book ‘ In An Antique land’ (1993)
Shadow Lines (1988)

 Sahitya Academi Award
 Gosh tries to draw the attention of the world to do away with borders that
divide the people.

35
 Novel set against the historical events Swadeshi movement, Second

World War, Partition of India and Communal riots of 1963-64 in Dhaka
and Calcutta.
 The Shadow lines tells the story of three generations of the narrator’s
family spread over Calcutta, Dhaka and London.
 Narrator — Narrator’s Uncle ( Tridib) — Narrator’s grandmother
Tha’mma)
Shashi Tharoor (1956- )
 Born in London
 His Works
 Non Fiction
 1. Reasons of State
 2.India ‘From Midnight to the Millennium
 3.Who is Indian
 4. The Importance of Being an Indian
 English Words that Originate from India ( Article by Shashi Tharoor)
Fiction
 1. The Great Indian Novel — A copy of Hindu epic Mahabharata. In ‘
The Great Indian Novel’ the main agent of action is Duryodhan, who is
both literal and figural symbol for Indra Gandhi.
 2. The Five Dollars Smile
 3. Show Business— Bollywood superstar Ashok Banjara critically
injured while shooting. Inspired by Amitabh Bachchhan.
English Words that Originate from India (Article by Shashi Tharoor)
 In this article Tharoor talks about some expression which we native

Indians use while speaking and writing. Such as
 What is your good name?
 Matrimonial aids have created their own cultural tropes with expressions
that only mean something in Indian English. Such as
 1. Wheatish complexion
 2. Traditional with modern outlook
 3. Homely ( home-loving and a good house keeper)

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Some other expressions

 1. I will return back.
 2. Desi practice of using ‘till’ to mean ‘as long as’. It is wrong to say ‘I
will miss you till you come back’.
 3. I am staying Bandra side. ( we should use ‘ I am living in the Bandra
Area)
 4. Entry through back side only.
Firdaus Kanga (1960- )
 Nick name — Pranav

 Parsi family born in Bombay
 An Indian lives in London

Trying to Grow (1990)
 Semi-autobiographical novel, set in India
 Trying to Grow was later turned into a film, Sixth Happiness

Heaven on Wheel (1990)
 A travelogue
 About his experience in UK
Irwin Allan Sealy (1951- )
 While most Anglo-Indians emigrated in the two decades following

independence, some like the Sealys did not. ‘The Trotter-Nama’ tells their
story and is dedicated to them.
Novels
1. The Totter-Nama : A Chronlicle (1988)
 Spanning in two centuries, two cultures and seven generations of an Anglo-
Indian.
2. Hero : A Fable (1990)
 Taken source from Indian ‘ Masala Movie’
3. The Everest Hotel : A Calendar ( 1998)

 Shortlisted for Booker
 Set in place called Drummondganj

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 It records one year events in the life of Young woman, a nun called Sister
Ritu. She renounces one world for another but again goes back to another
but again come back to the world left behind.
Upamanyu Chatterjee (1959 - )
 Born in Patna, Bihar, IAS officer from Maharashtra Cadre.

 Currently resides in Sri Lanka
His novels
1. English, August : An Indian Story ( 1988)
2. The Last Burden ( 1993)
3. The Mammaries of theWelfare State (2000) — SA Award
 A sequel to English, August
4. Weight Loss ( 2006)
5. Way to Go ( 2010) — Sequel to The Last Burden
6. Fairy Tales at Fifty
English, August
 Agatsya, a city boy posted in Madna (small town) as an IAS officer. He

finds his life boring here. His mind is dominated by marijuana (drug),
masturbation and the meditation of Marcus Aurelius.
Last Burden
 Relationship in joint family

 Jamun, a civil servant — protagonist
The Mammaries of the Welfare State
 The novel tells the story of political bureaucracy in the fictional state of
Madna when an epidemic breaks out — ( Anticipate of Covid-19 pandemic)
Weight Loss
 Bhola, a sexual deviant

 Gets sexual pleasure with everybody whom he meets.
 Expelled from school for defecating in teacher’s office, participates in an
inexpertly carried out circumcision — Weight Loss
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Pankaj Mishra (1969- )
 Born in Jhansi, India.

His novels
1. Butter Chicken in Ludhiana : Travels in Small Town India ( 1995) — A
novel
2. The Romantics (2000)
3. Age of Anger : A History of the Present ( 2017)
The Romantics
 Set in Benares
 East-West encounter
 Samar and Catherine
 It is Pankaj Mishra who advised Raj Kamal Jha to combine his six stories in
the form of novel and the result is the novel ‘The Blue Bedspread’.
Raj Kamal Jha (1966- )
 Born in Bhagalpur, Bihar

Novel
1. The Blue Bedspread ( 1999)
 ‘ Memory novel’ — memories of the narrator — sad and sordid

 Memories include— abused by a drunken father and an uncomfortable,
incestuous relationship with his sister.
 The ‘Blue Bedspread’ in the title becomes a symbol of escape into a more
pleasant world of imagination for both the children.

Shashi Deshpande (1938 - )
1. The Dark Hold no Terror ( 1980) — First novel

2. That Long Silence — SA Award in 1990
3. Small Remedies ( 2000)
“Everything in a girl’s life was shaped to that single purpose of pleasing
a male” (The Dark Hold no Terror)

39
Suniti Namjoshi (1941 - )
 Born in Mumbai, worked in Canada and presently lives in England.

 Namjoshi is a master of fabulistic fiction.
 She is above all a feminist, and this concern is expressed through allegory
and fable.
Novels / Fables (1981)

1. Feminist Fables (1981)
2. The Conversations of Cow (1985)
3. The Mothers of Maya Diip
Gita Hariharan (1954)

 Her first novel
The Thousand Faces of Night (1992)
 It presents three women belonging to different generation.
Anjana Appachana
 Indian origin lives in United States
 She has written
1.Incantations — A book of short stories
2. Listening Now —
* Six women tells a story of two lovers — Padma and Karan
* Set in Bangalore, Delhi and Lucknow
Arundhati Roy (1960 - )
1. The God of Small Things ( 1997)

2. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness ( 2017)
 She attacked the government decision of May 1998’s essay ‘The End of
Imagination’.
The God of Small Things
 Booker Prize
 Story limited to the perspective of Rahel, a woman of 30s and largely drawn
from her memories — memory novel
 Use of cinematic techniques — Time shifts, endless fast forward and
reversal etc.
40
 Complex linguistic style.

 The novel is set in a Kerala village known as Ayemenem.
 Ammu — central character, mother of twins 1. Rahel ( female) 2. Estha (
Male)
 Baby Kochamma — Ammu’s aunt ( Negative character)
 Valutha — Untouchable, in relation with Ammu
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
 Novel depicts violent episodes of modern history from land reform that
dispossessed poor farmers to the 2002 Godhra train burning and Kashmir
insurgency.
 Characters includes an intersex woman ( hijra), a rebellious architect and her
landlord who is a supervisor in intelligence.
Bharti Mukherjee ( 1940- 2017)
 Born in Calcutta
 Theme : Immigration to the West
 Indian American- Canadian writer
Bharti Mukherjee declares:
“ I am an American writer, in the American mainstream …… I am not an

Indian writer, not an exile, not an expatriate. I am an immigrant; my
investment is in the American reality, not the Indian.”
“ But that I am writing about the territory, about the feelings, of a new kind
of pioneers here in America.’
She says “ My theme is the making of new Americans’

( A Four-Hundred-Year- Old Woman” — Non-fiction)
 Her major themes include immigration to the West, psychological

transformation and the violence that accompanies it, women’s perspective
and search for autonomy ,and the hybrid worldview that relies on her Hindu
roots, Americanization, and increasingly, on transnational.
Her novels
1. The Tiger’s Daughter ( 1971)
41
2. Wife (1975)
3. Jasmine ( 1989)
4. The Holder of the World ( 1993) — retelling of Scarlet Letter
5. Leave It to Me ( 1997)
6. Desirable Daughters ( 2002)
7. The Tree Bride (2004)
 Sequel to Desirable Daughters
8. Miss New India ( 2011)
Non-fiction
1. Days and Nights in Calcutta ( 1977, with Clark Blaise) — Memoir
2. A Four-Hundred- Years- Old Woman
Tiger’s Daughter
 Mukherjee examines the reception of the Indian expatriate returned home.
 Tara — Protagonist
Wife
 Takes up the question of the Indian immigrant
Jasmine (1989)
 About illegal immigration
The Holder of the World (1993)

 It is a retelling of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter.
 Novel’s name after the name of a Mughal Emperor — Auranzeb
Leave it to Me (1997)
 It is completely American. The only Indian touch is the prologue, which
retells the mythological story of Mahishasuramardini. , the Devi who killed
Buffalo Demon.
Indira Ganesan (1960- )
Two novels
1. The Journey (1990)
2. Inheritance (1997)
3. As Sweet as Honey

42
Meena Alexander (1951- 2018)

 Born in Allahabad, India and lived and worked in New York.
Her Novels
1. Nampally Road ( 1991) — Set in Hyderabad
 Mira (Protagonist) becomes the victim of the gang rape by the police. The
people in the place rise up and burn the police station.
2. Manhattan Music ( 1997)
 Deals with the lives and problems of Indian immigrants living in America.
Memoir
 Fault Lines : A Memoir (1993)
Poetry
1. Illiterate Heart ( 2002)
2. Raw Silk (2004)
3. Atmospheric Embroidery ( 2018)
Kiran Desai ( 1971- )
 Born in New Delhi, India now lives in New York.

Her novels
1. Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard ( 1998)
2. The Inheritance of Loss ( 2016)
Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard
 Praised by Salman Rushdie

 Reworking of two earlier novels
1.Bhabani Bhattacharya’s ‘ He Who Rides a Tiger’ ( 1954)
2. R K Narayan’s The Guide ( 1958)
* Similarity in themes
* Set in Indian village of Shahkot (State of Panjab)
* Sampath Chawla — fed up with life and responsibilities — goes to guava
Orchard and settled there — becomes a popular ‘holy man’ like Guide’s
Raju.
* Based on real-life story of a man Kapila Pradhan, lived up a tree for 15
years.
The Inheritance of Loss (2006)

43
 The Gorkhaland movement used as the historic backdrop of the novel.

 The story centres around the lives of Biju and Sai
 Biju — Illegal alien residing in the United States
 Sai — An orphan living in India with her maternal grandfather Jemubhai
Patel, a retired Magistrate: the Cook; and a dog named Mutt.
 Patel is disgusted by Indian ways and customs— eats ‘Chapatis’ with knife
and fork.
 Theme — Colonialism and the effects of post-colonialism; the loss of
identity and the way it travels through generations as a sense of loss.
 Man Booker Prize in 2006.
Nirad C Chaudhuri ( 1897- 1999)
Autobiographies
1. The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian (1951)

2. Thy Hand, Great Anarch ! (1987)
Travel Writing
A Passage to England (1959)
Non- fiction
1. The Continent of Circle (1965)
2. The Intellectual in India ( 1967)
3. To Live or Not to Live! An Essay on Living Happily With Others (
1971)
4. Scholar Extraordinary : The Life of Professor the Right Honourable
Friedrich Max Muller PC ( 1974) — S A Award
5. Three Horsemen of the New Apocalypse ( 1998)
6. The East is East and West is West ( collection of pre-published
essays)
The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian (1951)
 It is dedicated to the Memory of the British Empire in India.

 We owe everything good to English Empire — Prefix in Autobiography

44
Thy Hand, Great Anarch !
 It is a sequel to’ The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian’. Its title was

inspired from the concluding couplet of A Pope’s ‘ The Dunciad’.
“ Thy hand, great Anarch! Lets the Curtain fall;
And universal Darkness buries All.”
 It depicts Indian political scene from 1920s to India’s Independence.
Attia Hosain( 1913- 1998) ( Diapora)

 Born in Lucknow
 Sarojini Naidu was impressed with Attia Hosain and once said about her
 “ My own ideal of womanhood from childhood’’
1. Phoenix Fled ( Short Story collection)

2. Sunlight on a Broken Column (1961)— Title from Hollow Man by Eliot.
 Novel is set in Lucknow
 An autobiographical account by a fictional Liala, who is a 15-year-old
orphaned daughter of a rich family of Taluqdars.
 It is about lady on the theme of partition of India.
Manju Kapur (
 Difficult Daughters (1998) — First novel

 It tells the story of Virmati, a young and rebellious girl, who fall in love
with a married professor.
 It is narrated by Virmati’s daughter Ida.
 It is a story of three generations of women. Kasturi, Virmati and Ida.
 Life in Panjab in the decades before Partition is the subject of “Difficult
Daughters’.
A Married Woman (2002)

 Lesbian theme
 Astha begins an extra-marital affair with a young woman.
 The issue of Babri Masjid and Ram Janam Bhoomi has been referred.
Jumpa Lahiri ( 1967 - )

 Nilanjana Sudeshna ‘ Jhumpa Lahiri’

45
 Bengal American author

 Born in London, the daughter of Indian immigrant from the Indian state
of West Bengal. Jumpa Lahiri explores the Indain-immigrant experience
in America within the multicultural context.
Notable works
 1. Interpreter of Maladies ( 1999)
 Collection of 9 short stories

 Won Pulitzer Prize for fiction (2000)
 The stories are about the lives of Indians and Indian Americans who are
caught between their roots and the ‘New World’
 First story in the collection ‘ A Temporary Matter’
The Namesake (2003)

 Jimpa Lahiri’s deput novel.
 Novel moves between Calcutta, Boston, and New York City.
 Novel talks about the problem of being caught between two conflicting
cultures with distinct religious, social and ideological differences.
 A movie has been made on this novel by the same name ‘The Namesake’
starring Irrfan Khan and Tabu.
Uncustomed Earth (2008)

 A collection of short stories
The Lowland (2013) — Novel
Gita Mehta (1943 _)
Her major works are following

 Karma Cola : Marketing the Mystic East ( 1979) Non-fiction
 Raj : A Novel ( 1989)— Novel
 A River Sutra ( 1993) — Novel
 Snakes and Ladders : Glimpses of Modern India ( 1977)
 Eternal Ganesha ; From Birth to Rebirth — Like a thread ( Sutra) , the
holy river Narmada runs through the novel first as the great brown
Mississippi does through the “ The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”

46
Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (1932- 2018)
 Trinidad and Tobago born English writer.

 In the late 19th century, Naipaul’s grandparents had emigrated from India
to work Trinidad’s plantations as indentured servants.
Fiction:
1.The Mystic Masseur ( 1957)

2. The Suffrage of Elvira (1958)
3. Miguel Street (1959)
Above three are Comedy of manners set in Trinidad
4. A House for Mr Biswas (1961) — Set in Trinidad
5. Mr Stone and the Knights Companion (1963) — Only novel set in
London.
6. The Mimic Men (1967) — Ralph Singh
7. A Flag on the Island (1967)
8. In a Free State (1971) — Booker Prize Winner
9. Guerrillas (1975) — Set on unnamed, remote Caribbean island and has
intertextual relations with Jane Eyre and Wuthering Height.
10. A Bend in the River (1979) — Opening lines ‘Nothing’
11. The Enigma of Arrival (1987)
12. A Way in the World (1994)
13. Half a Life (2001)
14. Magic Seeds (2004)
Non- fiction
1. The Middle Passage ; The Caribbean Revisited ( 1962)

2. An Area of Darkness ( 1964)
3. The Loss of El Dorado ( 1969)
4. India : A Wounded Civilization (1977)
5. Among the Believers : An Islamic Journey ( 1981)
6. India : A Million Mutinies Now ( 1990)
7. Beyond Belief : Islamic Excursions among the Converted Peoples (
1998) — Sequel to Naipaul’s ‘ Among the Believers : An Islamic
Journey ( 1979)
8. The Strangeness of Grief : A Writers reckons with Loss ( 2020)

47
The Mystic Masseur:
 A frustrated writer of India

 Rise from poverty to a successful politician due to his dubious talent as a
‘mystic’ masseur — A masseur who can cure illness.
 Ganesh Ramsumair
The Suffrage of Elvira

 A satire of the democratic process
 Depicts the slapstick circumstances during local election in one of the
district of Trinidad.
 Shows multiculturalism and effects of election on various ethnic groups,
including Muslims, Hindus and Europeans.
Miguel Street
 Set in Wartime Trinidad
 It tells about author’s childhood memories of Port of Spain ( Capital of
Trinidad and Tobago)
A House for Mr Biswas
 Mohun Biswas ( based on VS Naipaul father, Seerprasad Naipaul)

Outline
 Mohun Biswas born in a wrongway
 Pandit prophesies he will ‘eat up his mother and father’ and boy has
danger with water
 Mohun’s father drowns believing his son is in the water
 Mohun sister is sent to a wealthy aunt and uncle Tara and Ajodha
 Mohun becomes the member of Tulsi household ( Gharjamai)
 Shama — Mohun’s wife
 Rahghu — Mohun’s father
 Tara — Mohun’s mother’s sister
 Pundit Jayaram
 Mrs Tulsi — Shama’s mother
 Anand — Mohun’s son
The Mimic Men — Ralph Singh

48
 Ralph Singh, an Indo- Caribbean who narrates in first person.

 Naipaul’s description of West Indians as ‘mimic men’ is harsh but
true….”
A Flag on the Island

Dedicated to Diana Athill.
In a Free State (1971) — Booker

 The novel begins with a narrator on a ferry to Egypt and concludes many
years later when he returns to Egypt as a tourist.
A Bend in the River — Salim

 ( A Bend in the Ganges by Manohar Malgonkar)
 Story of Salim, a merchant in post-colonial mid 20th century Africa.
 “ The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to
become nothing, have no place in it.’— Opening line of ‘ A Bend in the
River’
Half a Life (2001)

 Set in India, African, Europe
 Willie Somerset Chandran
Magic Seeds (2004)

 Sequel to ‘Half a Life’
Non- fiction
The Middle Passage: The Caribbean Revisited

 Travelogue
 The book covers a yearlong trip Naipaul took through Trinidad, British
Guiana, Suriname, Martinique and Jamaica in 1961.
An Area of Darkness (1964)
 A deeply pessimistic work

 The book was immediately banned in India for its ‘negative portrayal of
India and its people’.

49
 Nissim Ezekiel wrote an essay in 1984 “Naipaul’s India and Mine” as

reply to Naipaul’s An Area of Darkness.
India: A Wounded Civilization (1977)
 Naipaul came to write this book on his third visit to India, prompted by
the Emergency of 1975.
India: A Million Mutinies Now ( 1990)
 The book is somewhat optimistic about the country and its people.
A Writer’s People: Ways of Looking and Feeling (2007)

 He discusses how the work of other writers has affected his own writing.
It is notable for his bad treatment of several notable authors especially
Anthony Powell’s novel sequence ‘A Dance to the Music of Time.’
Shobha De (1948)
 Sometimes referred to ‘Jackie Collins’ of India.

 He autobiography — ‘ Selective Memory: Stories from My Life’ ( 1998)
Socialite Evenings (1989)

 First novel
 Mumbai high society women, loveless marriage then engage in
themselves in extramarital affairs.
Nayantra Sahgal (1927)
 Member of Gandhi- Nehru family, daughter of Vijay Laxmi Pandit (

Nehru’s sister)
 Awarded Sahitya Academi Award for her “Rich Like Us’ (1985). Set in
state of emergency.
 Prison and Chocolate Cake ( 1952) — Memoir
Other Novels
 A Time to be Happy ( 1963)

Storm in Chandigarh (1969)
50
 Vishal Dubey ( protagonist) civil servant in Chandigarh, have an affair

with Saroj.
 Saroj is Inder’s wife
 Background— Division of Punjab in two states — Punjab and Haryana
Ved Mehta (1934 – 2021)
 Indian born author, blind from an early age.

 He became an American citizen in 1975.
 His autobiography — Face to Face : An Autobiography (1957)
 Continents of Exile
 Mehta’s autobiography
 Published between 1972 and 2004.
 Its first volume “ Daddyji” ( 1972) is part autobiography and part
biography of Mehta’s father.
 Dilinquent Chacha ( 1966)
Boman Desai
 The Memory of Elephant ( 1988)

 Asylum, USA (2000)
Makarand Paranjape (1960)
 The Narrator ( 1995)
Tabis Khair
 An Angel in Pujamas ( 1966)
Dhan Gopal Mukherji (1890- 1936)

 My Brother’s Face ( 1926) — Autobiographical novel
D F Karaka (1829- 1902)
Just Flesh (1941)

51
 Set in West
 British characters
Chitra Divakaruni ( 1956)

 Indian-born American author
Her works
 Arranged Marriage — A collection of short stories
Novels
 The Mistress of Spices — An experiment in magic realism
 Stolen of My Heart
 Her works are largely set in India and the US, and often focuses on the
experiences of South Asian immigrant.
Agha Shahid Ali (1949- 2002) Poet
 Indian born ( Kashmir) poet

 Immigrant to the United States
 Associated with the literary movement known a New Formalism in
American poetry.
His collection of poems

 The Half-Inch Himalayas
 The Country Without a Post office
Anita Rau Badami (1961)
 A Canadian writer of Indian descent

Her novels
 Tamarind Mem (1997)— First novel
 The Hero’s Walk ( 2001)
 Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? ( 2006)
 Tell it to the Trees ( 2011)
Santa Rama Rau (1923-2009)

52
 Indian-born American writer
Notable works
 This is India ( 1953) — Novel
 A Passage to India ( 1960)— Play
A play script of E M Forster novel ‘A Passage to India’.
 A Princess Remembers : The Memoirs of the Maharani of Jaipur ( Co-
author with Gayatri Devi)
Anita Nair (1966)

Best known works
 A Better Man ( Novel)
 Ladies Coupe ( 2001)
 Lessons in Forgetting ( 2012)
 Cut Like Wound ( 2012)
Ladies Coupe
 The novel follows the journey of a middle-aged Indian woman named
Akhila as she travels to Kanyakumarai in search of independence and on
the train’s ladies coups, exchange stories with five different women who
inspire her to live her own life.
Shauna Singh Baldwin (1962)

 Canadian- American novelist of Indian descent.
Sujata Bhatt (1956)

 Born in Ahmedabad, Gujarat
 Immigrated to US in 1968
Rama Mehta (1923- 1978)

Her novel
Inside the Haveli (1977)
 SA Award in 1979
 The story of the novel revolved round a young girl (Geeta) from
Mumbai, India. She marries son of a former Indian price and post-
marriage she relocates to Udaipur, Rajasthan.
 Geeta fights to maintain her modern values.

53
Anuradha Roy ( 1967)


 All the Lives We Never Lived (2018) — Sahitya Akademi Award in
2022
Partition Novels
1.Inquilab (1955) by K A Abbas
2. Train to Pakistan ( 1956) by Khushwant Singh
3 . The Dark Dancer (1958)by Balchandra Rajan
4.Sunlight on a Broken Column ( 1961) by Attia Kosain
4.A Bend in the Ganges ( 1964) by Manohar Malgonkar
5. Tamas (1974) by Bhishm Sahni
6.Azadi ( 1975) by Chaman Nahal
7.The Shadow Lines ( 1988) by Amitav Ghosh
8.Rivers withThree Banks ( 1999) by Shiv K Kumar


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1

( Colonial, Post Colonial & Diaspora)

1. Bankim Chandra Chatterji(1838-94)

23. Ved Mehta

Dr S .K. Sharma, Asst. Prof. (English) Mobile: 8000166081

49. Kiran Desai

Dr S .K. Sharma, Asst. Prof. (English) Mobile: 8000166081

Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838-94)

 Rajmohan’s Wife: A Tale of Love and Rebellion (1864)

Two major themes

 Binaca or The Young Spanish Maiden (1978) — A love story set in

Ramesh Chunder Dutt

Dr S .K. Sharma, Asst. Prof. (English) Mobile: 8000166081

Mulk Raj Anand (1905-2004)

 Seven volumes autobiographical project called ‘Seven Ages of Man’ but

 1. Seven Summers ( 1951)

 Conversations of Bloomsbury ( 1981)

 Pilpali Sahab ( 1985)

 Preface wrote by E M Forster (After rejecting 19 published). Forster

 Edwin Muir calls it a ‘ Character novel’

Two Leaves and a Bud (1937)

Dr S .K. Sharma, Asst. Prof. (English) Mobile: 8000166081

Across the Black Waters

The Sword and the Sickle

The Big Heart (1945)

The Private Life of an Indian Prince (1953)

The Old Woman and the Cow (1960)

Dr S .K. Sharma, Asst. Prof. (English) Mobile: 8000166081

 Gauri symbolizes the strength and purity of Sita. In the Ramayan a

The Road — Character Bhikhu similar to Bakha

Death of a Hero (1963)

 Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami

 1. Swami and Friends ( 1935)

Dr S .K. Sharma, Asst. Prof. (English) Mobile: 8000166081

 11. The Painter of Signs ( 1977)

The Antidote — Story

Swami and Friends (1935)

 Cricketers mentioned — Jack Hobbs, Donald Bradman, Duleep, Maurice

The Bachelor of Arts (1937)

The English Teacher (1945) : Grateful to Life and Death

The Financial Expert

Waiting for the Mahatma; A Novel of Gandhi

Man-eaters of Malgudi (1961)

The Vendor of Sweets (1967)

The Painter of Signs (1977)

Tiger for Malgudi (1983)

Dr S .K. Sharma, Asst. Prof. (English) Mobile: 8000166081

 Narayan decided to write this book when he saw a bookmark with a

Grandmother’s Tale (1992)

Raja Rao (1909- 2006)

Short Story Collections

Dr S .K. Sharma, Asst. Prof. (English) Mobile: 8000166081

The Serpent and the Rope (1960)

 SA Award, Semi- autobiographical novel, Technique from Vedas

Dr S .K. Sharma, Asst. Prof. (English) Mobile: 8000166081

 The Serpent and the Rope explores philosophical links between

 Subtitle — A Tale of Modern India

Comrade Kirillov (1976 )

 Kirillov- Irene relationship

The Chessmaster and his Moves (1988)

Bhabani Bhattacharya (1906-1988)

Dr S .K. Sharma, Asst. Prof. (English) Mobile: 8000166081

 2. Music for Mohini ( 1952)