Indian English Fiction: An Appraisalby Dr. Arvind M. Nawale |
|
English Literature |
Literature Links |
English Literature Essays |
English Literature Bookshop |
Short Story Writing |
Books on Film |
Forum |
GCSE Books |
|
|
||
The origin of Indian English fiction
Indian English literature originated as a necessary outcome of the introduction of English education in India under colonial rule. In recent years it “has attracted widespread interest, both in India and abroad” (Dhawan 1988:05). It is now recognized that Indian English literature is not only part of Commonwealth literature, but also occupies a “great significance in the World literature.” (Ibid.)
Today, a number of Indian writers in English have contributed substantially to modern English literature. Ram Mohan Roy who heralded the Indian Renaissance and Macaulay who recommended English language education in India were probably aware of what was in store for the Indians in terms of literary awareness. Today it “has won for itself international acclaim and distinction.” (Mongia 1997:213)
Fiction, being the most powerful form of literary expression today, has acquired a prestigious position in Indian English literature. It is generally agreed that the novel is the most suitable literary form for the exploration of experiences and ideas in the context of our time, and Indian English fiction occupies its proper place in the field of literature. There are critics and commentators in England and America who appreciate Indian English novels. Prof. M. K. Naik remarks: “one of the most notable gifts of English education to India is prose fiction for though India was probably a fountain head of story-telling, the novel as we know today was an importation from the West.” (1985:99)
Early novelists
It was in Bengal that a literary renaissance first manifested itself, but almost immediately afterwards its traces could be seen in Madras, Bombay and other parts of India. The first Indian English novel was Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s Raj Mohan’s Wife (1864). It is different from his Bengali novels such as Durgesh Nandini or Kopal Kandla. In fact, it paved the way for Anand Math (1884), Indian’s first political novel which gave the Indians their national anthem, “Vande Mataram”. Then came Manoj Basu’s Jaljangal in the form of English translation as The Forest Goddess by Barindra Nath Bose.
The novels published from the eighteen sixties up to the end of the nineteenth century were written by writers belonging to the presidencies of Bengal and Madras. Most of these novels are on social and few on historical issues, and for their models they drew upon eighteenth and nineteenth century British fiction, especially that of Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding and Walter Scott.
Novels published between 1864 and 1900 include Ram Krishna Punt’s The Bay of Bengal (1866), Anand Prosad Dutt’s The Indolence (1878), Shoshee Chunder Dutt’s The Young Zamindar (1883), Trailokya Das’s Hirimba’s Wedding (1884), Krupabai Satthianandan’s Kamala: A Story of Hindu Life (1995) and Saguna: A Story of Native Christian Life (1895), Shevantibai M. Nikambe’s Ratnabai: A Sketch of a Bombay High Caste Hindu Wife (1995), Michael Madhusudan Dutt’s Bijoy Chand: An Indian Tale (1888) and Lt. Suresh Biswas: His Life and Adventures (1900) and Yogendra Nath Chattopadhyaya’s The Girl and Her Tutor (1891).
The twentieth century began with novelists of more substantial output. Romesh Chandra Dutt translated two of his own Bengali novels into English: The Lake of Palms: A Study of Indian Domestic Life (1902) and The Slave Girl of Agra, an Indian Historical Romance (1909). The first, a realistic novel, seems to have been written with the aim of social reform with its theme being widow remarriage, while the latter is set in the Mughal period.
Sarath Kumar Ghosh, another Bengali novelist, wrote Verdict of Gods (1905) and The Prince of Destiny: The New Krishna (1909). A. Madhaviah and T. Ramakrishna Pillai, belonging to Madras presidency were two important contemporaries of these Bengali novelists. Madhaviah wrote Satyananda (1909), Thrillai Govindan (1916), Clarinda (1915), Nanda, the Pariah Who Overcame Caste (1923) and Lt. Panju-A Modern Indian (1924). T. Ramakrishna Pillai wrote Padmini (1903) and A Dive for Death (1911).
Another Indian English novelist of prominence was a Punjabi writer Jogendra Singh. His fictional work includes: Nur Jahan, The Romance of an Indian Queen (1909), a historical novel: Nasrin, An Indian Medley (1911), a realistic novel depicting the fall of aristocratic life in North India, Kamala (1925) and Kamni (1931), dealing with social themes. The first three were published in London and the last in Lahore.
Then appeared on the scene novels such as S. T. Ram’s The Cosmopolitan Hindusthani (1902), L. B. Pal’s A Glimpse of Zanana Life in Bengal (1904), S. B. Banerjee’s The Adventures of Mrs. Russell (1909), Balkrishna’s The Love of Kusuma: An Eastern Love Story (1910), B. K. Sarkar’s Man of Letters (1911), M. M. Munshi’s Beauty and Joy (1914) and T. K. Gopal Pannikar’s Storm and Sunshine (1916).
The Gandhian movement
The Gandhian whirlwind blew across the country during 1920-1947. Under the dynamic leadership of Mahatma Gandhi established political notions started vanishing from the scene and in turn new ideas and methods appeared, not only in the political field but in almost every walk of Indian life. The inevitable impact of the Gandhian movement on Indian English literature was the sudden flowering of realistic novels during the nineteen thirties. Novelists turned their attention away from the past to concentrate on contemporary issues. In their novels prevailing social and political problems that Indians found themselves in were given prominence. The nation-wide movement of Gandhi not only inspired Indian English novelists but also provided them with some of their prominent themes, such as the struggle for freedom, the East-West encounter, the communal problem and the miserable condition of the untouchables, the landless poor, the downtrodden, the economically exploited and the oppressed.
The impact of the far-reaching change on the Indian social and political scene caused by the Gandhian movement can be perceived in K. S. Venkatramani’s Murugan, the Tiller (1927) and Kandan, the Patriot: A Novel of New India in the Making (1932). The former reflects Gandhian economics while the latter reflects his politics. Then came A. S. P. Ayyer, whose novels like Baladitya (1930) and Three Men of Destiny (1939), although untouched by the twentieth century models and set in ancient Indian history, are Gandhian in spirit.
The great trinity
These novelists and their novels paved the way for the great trinity: Mulk Raj Anand, R. K. Narayan and Raja Rao whose emergence was the most remarkable event in the realm of Indian English fiction. They were the harbingers of the true Indo-English novel. These novelists began writing around the mid 1930s. Bhabani Bhattacharya was also a contemporary of these novelists by birth, but he started writing fiction just after Indian independence.
The writing of these novelists moved the Indian English novel in the right direction. They discovered a whole new world in Indo-English fiction, and the Indian novel owes much to their efforts for gaining solid ground and achieving an identity of its own. They defined the area in which the Indian novel was to operate, and brought the Indo-Anglian novel within hailing distance of the latest novels of the West. They established the suppositions, the manner, the concept of character, and the nature of the themes which were to give the Indian novel its particular distinctiveness. They “laid the foundation for the genuine Indo-Anglian novel, each imparting to the Indian experience a dimension of individuality based of their particular approach to content and form.” (Rao 1980:144)
Mulk Raj Anand
Mulk Raj Anand (1905-2004) has been the most prolific of the trio. His contribution to Indian English fiction of social realism is incontrovertibly great. His Untouchable (1935) depicts the story of the low caste boy, Bhakha. It is basically a tragic drama of the individual caught in the net of the age-old caste system. In Coolie (1936) he presents a poverty-stricken protagonist, Munoo. Both novels are “a plea for downtrodden, the poor and the outcast, who face economic hardship and emotional humiliation in a rigid social structure” (Singh 1997:127). His Two Leaves and a Bud (1937) depicts the story of a middle-aged peasant, Ganger, from a village in Punjab.
Among Anand's other novels are The Village (1939), Across the Black Waters (1941), The Sword and the Sickle (1942), The Big Heart (1945), Seven Summers (1951), The Private Life of Indian Prince (1953), The Old Woman and the Cow (1960), The Road (1963), The Death of the Herd (1964), Mourning Face (1970), Confession of a Lover (1976), The Bubble (1984), Little Plays of Mahatma Gandhi (1998) and Nine Moods of Bharata: Novel of a Pilgrimage (1998).
Anand's novels portray vividly the wretched condition of Indian rural society. He is one who “believes that literature must serve society, solve their problems and guide them” (Behera 1999:11). Through his novels he says that poverty, class, the caste system and other widespread evils of society are like a poison that inflicts society and makes it sordid and inhuman. He is considered the Indian version of Charles Dickens as far as the treatment of social themes is concerned.
R. K. Narayan
R. K. Narayan (1906-2001), one of the most prolific of Indian novelists in English, is a product of the South Indian Hindu middle class family. He remained aloof from contemporary socio-political issues and explored the South Indian middle class milieu in his fiction. He is a writer with full commitment to Hindu ideas. He created an imaginary small town named Malgudi and depicted middle class life in that town in almost all his works.
Before independence Narayan produced Swami and Friends (1935), The Bachelor of Arts (1937), The Dark Room (1938) and The English Teacher (1946). His fictional art seems to reach maturity in his novels which appeared after independence: The Financial Expert (1952), The Guide (1958) and Man Eater of Malgudi (1962). His other novels include Waiting for Mahatma (1955), dealing with the Gandhian freedom struggle, The Vendor of Sweets (1967), and The Painter of Signs (1976). The Guide “represents perhaps, the most sophisticated example of narrative technique in the Indo-English novel.” (Riemenschmeider 1988:57)
In his nineties Narayan added four more novels to his corpus with A Tiger for Malgudi (1983), Talkative Man (1983), The World of Nagraj (1990) and Grandmother’s Tale (1992). Narayan succeeded in universalizing his Malgudi, though a local town, as Hardy universalized his ‘Wessex’. The inhabitants of Malgudi - although they may have their local identity - are essentially human beings having kinship with all humanity. In his novels we meet college boys, teachers, guides, tourists, municipal members, and taxi drivers of Malgudi, but through the provincial themes he forges a universal vision. He “peoples his novels with caricatures rather than characters.” (Melwani 1977:31)
Raja Rao
Raja Rao (1908-2006), whose “advent on the literary scene has been described as the appearance of a new star shining bright” (Azam 2000:34) is the youngest of the great trio. He is not a prolific writer like R. K. Narayan and Mulk Raj Anand who have to their credit a dozen novels each and numerous short stories. Even so, he is one of the most significant writers of modern India. At the time of writing he has published five novels, Kanthapura (1938), The Serpent and the Rope (1960), The Cat and Shakespeare (1965), Comrade Kirillov (1976) and The Chessmaster and His Moves (1988).
Kanthapura is perhaps the finest representation of the Gandhian whirlwind in Indian English fiction. It “is the story of a village with that name” (Augustine 2000:62). It presents “the Gandhian ideology of non-violence and abolition of untouchability." (Ojha 2000:28). Like its spirit, the form and style of Kanthapura also follow the Indian tradition.
The Serpent and the Rope, winner of the Sahitya Academy Award in 1963, “is considered a landmark in Indian-English fiction” (Narayan 1988:01), its form showing a successful orchestration of Indian and Western methods. The Cat and the Shakespeare, a metaphysical comedy, is an example of philosophical fiction. The Chessmaster and His Moves is characterized by an array of meaningful symbols. Here “The Chessmaster” himself and “his moves” are what He makes man do. Raja Rao’s place in the realm of Indian English fiction is safe as the most Indian of novelists in English, as stylist, symbolist, myth-maker, the finest painter of the East-West encounter and a philosophical novelist.
Muslim writers
During the period of the major trio, Anand, Narayan and Rao, who produced epoch-making pieces of Indian English fiction writing, many other novelists were active and a considerable number of novels were produced. Many of these novelists, being Muslims, depicted in their works life in Muslim households. These novels are Ahmed Ali’s Twilight in Delhi (1940) and Ocean of Night (1964), Iqbalunnisa Hussain’s Purdah and Polygamy: Life in an Indian Muslim Household (1944), Humayun Kabir’s Men and River (1945), a novel based on a folk tale, true to its original inspiration, Amir Ali’s Conflict (1947), Via Geneva (1967) and Assignment in Kashmir (1973), K. A. Abbas’s Tomorrow is Ours: A Novel of the India of Today (1943) and Inquilab: A Novel of the Indian Revolution (1955).
Among others who deserve mention are: Dhan Gopal Mukherji’s four novels: Kari, The Elephant (1922), Hari, the Jungle Lad (1924), The Chief of the Herd (1929), and Ghond, the Hunter (1929). C. S. Rau’s The Confessions of a Bogus Patriot (1923), Ram Narain’s Tigress of the Herem (1930), V. V. Chintamani’s Vedantam or the Clash of Traditions (1938), Shankar Ram’s Love of Dust (1938), D. F. Karaka’s Just Flesh (1941), There Lay the City (1942) and We Never Die (1944), C. N. Zutshi’s Motherland (1944), Purushottamdas Tricumdas’s Living Mask (1947).
After independence
After gaining independence India had many challenges to face and many changes came over Indian life. Complications took place in social, political, economic and cultural spheres but India handled them thoughtfully and adequately and progressed step by step. The fact of being independent and having its own identity spurred Indian English writing. It provided the writer with self-confidence, broadened his vision and sharpened his self-examining faculty. As a result of these developments important gains were registered, especially in fiction, poetry and criticism. Fiction, already well established, grew in both variety and stature.
The convention of social realism in Indian English fiction, established by Mulk Raj Anand, went on flourishing during the nineteen fifties and early sixties through Bhabani Bhattacharya, Manohar Malgonkar and Khushwant Singh. While Sudhin Ghosh, G. V. Desai and Anantanarayanan, though with natural individual variation, enlivened the trend of the experimental novel, oriented by Raja Rao in his Kanthapura. In addition, the fictional works of B. Rajan present the combined effect of realism and fantasy.
Bhabani Bhattacharya
Bhabani Bhattacharya’s fiction bore social purpose, as he believes that the “novel must have a social purpose” (Khatri 2000:60) but he occasionally succeeded in achieving a vivid interpretation of life. In his first novel So Many Hungers (1947), Bhattacharya, dealing with the theme of exploitation on the political, economic and social ground, takes the Quit India movement and the Bengal famine of the early nineteen forties as its background. It continued the tradition of social realism stressing, like Anand, the necessity of social purpose in fiction.
In Music for Mohini (1952) Bhattacharya tries to connect our age-old vision of life with the new semi-western attitude. In He Who Rides the Tiger (1952) he forms an intricate criss-cross of themes such as appearance and reality, the “haves” and the “have-nots” and religious hypocrisy. His Goddess Named Gold (1960) is a good example of allegorical writing. In Shadow from Ladakh (1966) he used symbolism against the background of the Chinese invasion of 1962. In A Dream in Hawaii (1978) he deals with the theme of the East-West encounter. Bhattacharya’s contribution to Indian English fiction is noteworthy. He is “the only Indo-Anglian writer whose work has been translated into over two dozen foreign languages.” (Melwani 1977:31)
Manohar Malgonkar
Manohar Malgonkar, one of the popular Indo-English novelists of the modern era, started his career after independence with the publication of Distant Drum (1960). He is an artist of the first order. He excels in literary sensibility and critical maturity; he “subtly makes a landmark as a historical novelist” (Kumar 2002:105). Though a realist, unlike Bhatthacharya, Malgaonkar holds the opinion that art has no other purpose to serve than pure entertainment. Even so, his major preoccupation seems to be the role of history in individual and social life in India.
Distant Drum is a documentary of army life in its various aspects and a celebration of army code as developed by the Britishers in the army. Combat of Shadows (1962) derives its title and epigraph from the Bhagvad Gita. The Princess (1963), no doubt Malgaonkar’s best novel, is also a successful political novel. It reveals the bright side of the princely world. The setting of A Bend in the Ganges (1964) is Partition while the Ramayana is the source of its title and epigraph. The Devil's Wind (1972) deals with the great Revolt of 1857. His novels after 1980 include Bandicoot Run (1982), The Garland Keepers (1987) and Cactus Country (1992), all containing spy stories in the center.
Other novelists
Khushwant Singh came into the limelight as a crude realist with the publication of his Train to Pakistan (1956). In this novel he depicts the impact of Partition on a small village on the India-Pakistan border. His second novel I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale (1959) shows an ironic picture of a Sikh joint family symbolizing different Indian reactions to the freedom movement of the nineteen forties. Later novels include Delhi (1992), covering more than eight hundred years in the life of a city, which has been the heart of India in more than one sense, and The Company of Women (1999). His crude realism finds a place in each of his novels.
Another novelist of the period is J. Menon Marath whose realism is deeply rooted in his native land Kerala, as Khushwant Singh’s in the Punjab. He wrote Wound of Spring (1960), The Sale of an Island (1968) and Janu (1988). Bhalachandra Rajan presents a blend of realism and fantasy, the two conspicuous strains in the Indian English fiction of the nineteen fifties and sixties. Unlike his contemporaries, Rajan’s realism is less social than psychological in his first novel The Dark Dancer (1959). His second novel Too Long in the West (1961) is a comic extravaganza.
Another novelist, Sudhindra Nath Ghosh, adopts the ancient native tradition of story-telling to express the Indian ethos in all of his four novels: And Gazelles Leaping (1949), Cradle of the Clouds (1951), The Vermilion Boat (1953) and The Fame of the Forest (1955). G. V. Desani’s All About H. Hatters (1948) was a daring step on the ground of the Indian English experimental novel. In presenting the story of the hero’s search for a viable philosophy of living, his quest for understanding the meaning of life, Desani blends Indian and Western narrative forms.
Women writers
An important feature of this period was the growth of Indian women novelists writing in English. Their appearance added a new dimension to Indian English novel. It is only after India gained freedom that they have begun enriching Indian English fiction. The dominant figures were Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Kamala Markandaya, Nayantara Sahgal and Anita Desai.
Kamala Markandaya
Kamala Markandaya, one of the most outstanding and eminent Indo-Anglian novelists, shows a broad range and rich variety of setting, characters, and theme. Her first novel Nectar in a Sieve (1954), a tragedy engineered by economics, is a woeful tale of the trials and tribulations of a peasant couple, Nathan and Rukmani, of a South Indian Village. Her second novel, Some Inner Fury (1957), is primarily a political novel dealing with the straining of human relationships in the wake of Quit India Movement. A Silence of Desire (1961) depicts the conflict between Indian spiritual faith and modernism born of India’s contact with the West. Possession (1963) seems to be a continuation of A Silence of Desire, dealing with the conflict between Indian spiritualism and Western materialism. Two of her later novels, A Handful of Rice (1966) and Two Virgins (1973), however, covertly show how the modernism brought in by the Western influence inspires the protagonists to revolt against their traditional environment and seek their fulfilment by shaping their careers independently.
In The Coffer Dams (1969) Markandaya deals with the theme of the East-West encounter from a different angle by presenting the conflict between technological power and the forces of nature symbolized by a turbulent South Indian river. She exposes a new dimension of the theme of East-West confrontation through Markandaya in The Nowhere Man, where she reveals the predicament of Indian immigrants in England. For the first time she tries her pen at historical fiction with the publication of The Golden Honneycomb (1977), a chronicle of three generations of the princely family of Devpur. Her next novel was Pleasure City (1982). In all her novels Markandaya has treated the theme of East-West confrontation more comprehensively than any other Indian English Novelist.
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala takes an amused look at arranged marriages in India with her Jane Austenian tongue-in-cheek style and presents an ironic survey of the East-West confrontation. Her early novels To Whom She Will (1955), and The Nature of Passion (1956) are exquisite comedies of urban middle-class life in the nineteen fifties and sixties. Her other novels include The Householder (1960), Get Ready for Battle (1962), A New Dominion (1973), Heat and Dust (1975), In Search of Love and Beauty (1983), The Continents (1987), Poet and Dancer (1993) and Shards of Memory (1995). In all her novels she observes keenly the strangeness of human behaviour and presents it with gentle irony and good-humoured satire.
Nayantara Sahgal
Nayantara Sahgal, whose forte is politics, is the leading practitioner of the political novel in India. She writes simple prosaic tales about politicians and bureaucrats. In addition to the obvious political theme Sahgal shows her preoccupation with the modern Indian woman’s search for sexual freedom and self-realization. Her novels include A Time to be Happy (1958), This Time of Morning (1968), Storm in Chandigarh (1969), The Day in Shadow (1971), A Situation in New Delhi (1977), Rich Like Us (1985), Plans for Departure (1985) and Mistaken Identity (1988). In all her novels the political turmoil of the outside world and the private torment of individuals are woven together.
After the 1960s
After the 1960s Indian English fiction, like its Western counterpart, shifted its focus from the public to the private sphere. The mass destruction caused by nuclear weapons in World War 2 brought unrest and anxiety all over the world. The situation gave rise to psychological disorders and loss of moral values, and profoundly disturbed man’s mental peace and harmony. World literature, responding to the new era, started to deal with the different gloomy faces of modern society.
Indian novelists could not remain aloof from these currents and henceforth they were not exclusively concerned with the exploration and interpretation of a social milieu, but dealt with new subjects of human existence and man’s quest for self in all its complicated situations. This shift of focus in Indian English fiction becomes clearer particularly with Anita Desai and Arun Joshi who explore the agonized existence of modern man in their writing which “changed the face of Indian English novel." (Verma 2002:01)
Anita Desai
Anita Desai, one of the literary luminaries of contemporary Indian fiction writing in English, is the most prominent among the Indian English novelists who have tried to portray the tragedy of human souls trapped in the circumstances of life. She “is more interested in the interior landscape of the mind than in political and social realities” (Iyer 2002:176). In her novels Indian English fiction has acquired a depth which it seldom had before. She is more interested in the evaluation of the interior landscape of the human mind than in depicting the practical and social realities of life.
The combined influence of the great philosophers of the West and the fast-changing elements in the social structure of India had a great impact on Desai. She makes each work a haunting exploration of the psychic self. Her work is executed so thoroughly that her treatment gets the look of a philosophical system, a system which has been familiar to the world in the form of existentialism. The main point of concern in her novels is the loneliness of individual life. Through her novels, Cry, the Peacock (1963), Voices in the City (1965) and Bye-Bye Blackbird (1971) she has added a new dimension to the achievement of Indian woman novelist in English fiction.
Cry, the Peacock, her first novel, is a highly impressionistic account of the incompatible marital life of Maya, a hypersensitive woman who causes her detached and indifferent husband, Gautama's death, by pushing him from a roof, because he stands between her and a particularly beautiful moonrise. The cry of the peacock symbolizes the elusive equipoise to which she aspires.
In Voices in the City the Maya-Gautam tragedy is re-enacted in Monisha-Jiban marriage and Desai captures eloquently the voices of the spiritual quest of three young people who are sensitive, educated and excessively self-conscious, but plagued by the absence of goals in their life in the city of Calcutta.
Her Akademi Award winning novel, Where Shall We Go This Summer? (1975) deals with Sita’s awareness of a basic dichotomy in the urban milieu, between compassion and the odour of death and destruction, and her resultant urge to free herself from the entire civilization and reach affirmation. It “depicts the inner-outer world of its protagonist Sita and her fatigue for life.” (Prasad 2000:112). In Clear Light of Day (1980) she draws an ironic parallel between the freedom of the country and Raja’s and Bhim’s own personal freedom. Her other works, Fire on the Mountain (1977), In Custody (1984) and Fasting, Feasting (1999) also deal with similar existential questions tormenting the individuals. She is a dominant figure in the twentieth century Indo-Anglian fiction.
By the end of the nineteen sixties and the early seventies some fresh faces appeared of the Indian English fictional scene, the most prominent of them were Chaman Nahal and Arun Joshi.
Arun Joshi
Arun Joshi (1939-1993), Like Anita Desai, has recorded modern man’s traumas and agonies in his novels with rare competence and gravity. “It is with the novels of Arun Joshi and Anita Desai that a new era in the Indo-English fiction began and also witnessed a change in the treatment of themes” (Bhatt and Alexander 2001:11). He “takes his place alongside Anita Desai as the best of the new Indo-Anglian writers”. His emphasis is on the individual psyche of the protagonist throughout his five novels. His technique of introspection intensified by self-mockery opens a new dimension in the art of Indian English fiction. It is because of his novel approach, his psychological understanding of the inner conflict of human beings and his philosophical existential vision, that one is drawn into his writing. Joshi recognizes a reality beyond the mere phenomenal world, a reality which only an artist could imagine and capture by giving a consistent form to the shapeless face of human existence.
Joshi’s place among the major Indian English novelists of the twentieth century is undisputed. He was exceptionally perceptive as a creative artist, but his premature demise in 1993 cut short his promising literary career. He could contribute to Indian English literature only five novels and a few short stories. His novels are: The Foreigner (1968), The Strange Case of Billy Biswas (1971), The Apprentice (1974), The Last Labyrinth (1981), The City and the River (1990) and a collection of short stories, The Survivor (1975). There is also a work of biography entitled Lala Shri Ram: A Study in Entrepreneurship in Industrial Management (1975), which is more in the nature of domestic eulogy. He won the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award for his fourth novel The Last Labyrinth in 1982. It was very unfortunate that a man of such amazing abilities died of cardiac arrest in April 1993 at the age of fifty four in New Delhi.
Among Joshi’s contemporaries, Chaman Nahal is an important novelist. His most outstanding work before the eighties was Azadi (1975), one of the most prominent novels on the theme of Partition. His other novels before the eighties comprise My True Faces (1973), Into Another Dawn (1977) and The English Queens (1979). Among his novels after 1980 are: The Crown and The Lioncloth (1981), The Salt of Life (1990), and The Triumph of the Tricolour (1993).
After 1980
After 1980 began the period of so-called “new” fiction. In this period a breed of new novelists emerged. It includes Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Upmanyu Chatterjee, Shashi Deshpande, Shashi Tharoor, Shobha De, Amitav Ghose, Amit Choudhary, and Arundhati Roy.
Shashi Deshpande is the novelist with the most sustained achievement, having published eight novels. She seems to grapple with the identity crisis of the contemporary women in her works. Her important novels include The Dark Holds No Terrors (1980), If I Die Today (1982), A Matter of Times (1996) and Small Remedies (2000).
Salman Rushdie’s Midnight's Children (1981) heralded a new era in the history of Indian English Fiction. His other important novels include Shame (1983) and Satanic Verses (1988). Amitav Ghosh, one of the most popular names in recent Indian English fiction writing, started with The Circle of Reason (1986) followed by In An Antique Land (1992), The Culcutta Chromosome (1996) and The Glass Palace (2000). Shashi Tharoor’s first novel The Great Indian Novel (1989) is one of the finest examples of post-modern fiction in recent Indian English Literature.
Vikram Seth published a novel in verse, The Golden Gate, in 1986. In 1993 appeared his A Suitable Boy, which won him great fame as a first-rate novelist. It was followed by An Equal Music (1999).
At the time of writing Amit Choudhary has published four novels, namely A Strange and Sublime Address (1991), Afternoon Raag (1993), Freedom Song (1998) and A New World (2000). Shobha De’s important contribution includes Socialite Evenings (1989), Starry Nights (1991), Sisters (1992), Strange Obsession (1992), Sultry Days (1994), Snapshots (1995) and Second Thoughts (1996). But De’s novels, though selling like hot cakes in India and abroad, would seem to belong less to serious literature than to pulp writing.
Another writer of immense worth is Arundhati Roy. She won the Booker Prize for her maiden novel, The God of Small Things (1997). It is a tale of shock and horror with theme of death and decay. In it Roy reveals immorality in public life, too, which is rocked by party politics and selfish motives.
Conclusion
The Indian English novel has passed through a tough time. There was a time when Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable was left untouched by British publishers before being recommended by E. M. Foster to Lawrence and Wishart to accept it. The same happened with R. K. Narayan whose Swami and Friends had to wait for Graham Greene’s recommendation. But today the case is different. Indian English literature is now readily accepted abroad. In fact Indian English novelists have elevated themselves by overtaking novelists whose mother-tongue is English in the race to win major literary awards. Although Indian English literature struggled hard to gain its establishment, the recent acclaim won by Vikram Seth (A Suitable Boy) and Arundhati Roy (The God of Small Things) has put it in the global spotlight.
Indisputably, the Indian English novel has gained a unique viability, vibrancy and vitality, attracting a remarkably wide readership and universal acclaim, to which the new novelists have made a positive contribution.
Endnotes and references
Azam, S. M. R. 2000. “Ambiguity in Raja Rao’s Second Novel, The Serpent And the Rope.” In Prasad Amar Nath: 34-40.
Behera, Smruti Ranjan. 1999. “The Literary Style of Mulk Raj Anand.” In Bhatnagar: 11-41.
Bhatnagar, M. K. 1999. Editor. Indian Writing in English. Vol. III. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors.
Bhatt, Indira and Alexander, Suja. 2001. Arun Joshi’s Fiction: A Critique. New Delhi: Creative Books.
Dhawan, R. K. 1986. Editor. The Fictional World of Arun Joshi. New Delhi: Classical Publishing Company.
Iyer, N. Sharada. 2002. “The Blackbird’s Rough Passage.” In Naikar: 175-183.
Khatri, Chhote Lal. 2000. “Bhabani Bhattacharya’s He Who Rides A Tiger: A Socio-Economic Perspective.” In Rajeshwar and Piciucco: 60-70.
Kumar, Arjun. 2002. “Manohar Malgonkar’s Novels: A True Dynamo of Historical Sense and Sensibility.” In Naikar: 105-120.
Melwani, Murli Das. 1977. Themes in Indo-Anglian Literature. Bareilly: Prakash Book Depot.
Mongia, Sunanda. 1997. “Recent Indian Fiction in English: An Overview.” In Singh Ram Sewak and Sing Charu Sheel: 213-232.
Naik, M. K. 1985. Dimensions of Indian English Literature. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers.
Naikar, Basawraj. 2002. Editor. Indian English Literature. Vol. II. New Delhi. Atlantic Publishers and Distributors.
___. 2002. Editor. Indian English Literature. Vol. III. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors.
Prasad, Amar Nath. 2000. Indian Novel in English: Critical Perspective. New Delhi:Sarup & Sons.
Rajeshwar, Mittapalli and Piciucco, Pier Paolo. 2000. Editors. Studies In Indian Writing in English. Vol. I. New Delhi. Atlantic Publishers and Distributors.
Rao, K. R. 1980. The Fiction of Raja Rao. Aurangabad: Parimal Prakashan.
Singh, Ram Sewak and Singh, Charu Sheel. 1997. Spectrum History of Indian Literature in English. New Delhi. Atlantic Publishers and Distributors.
Verma, Mukesh Rajan. 2002. “India English Novel Since 1985.” In Verma, M. R. and Agarwal, K. A.: 01-07.
Verma, M. R. and Agarwal, K. A. 2002. Editors. Reflections on Indian English Literature. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors.
© Dr. Arvind M. Nawale, March 2009
Head, Dept. of English, Shivaji College, Udgir, Dist: Latur (M.S.), India
English Literature |
Literature Links |
English Literature Essays |
English Literature Bookshop |
Short Story Writing |
Books on Film |
Forum |
GCSE Books |
|
powered by |
|||
| Try the new English Literature Bookshop > | |||
Privacy Policy |
|||