Author: Amit Chaudhuri
Editor(s): Amit Chaudhuri
Publisher: Picador India
Year: 2002
Language: English
Pages: 638
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0330343645
Description
This selection is the most informative and important anthology of Indian writing to date.
'Can it be true that Indian writing, that endlessly rich complex and problematic entity, is to be represented by a handful of writers who write in English…? More important5ly, is it possible to assess properly and appreciate the merits of this handful of writers without any recourse to the diverse intellectual traditions to which they do or do not belong?'
So, Amit Chaudhuri asks in the introduction to the first truly comprehensive anthology of writing from India. Both his introduction and the very contents of the book, which cover about a hundred and fifty years, shatter many contemporary illusions about the literary and intellectual traditions of this continent. This anthology, going against the grain, gives the reader a vivid sense of the amazingly heterogeneous and complex literary practices and debates that have engaged writers in India from the nineteenth century to the present day, showing how modern Indian writing is not a single tradition, but multiple, sometimes competing, traditions embedded within tradition.
Translations from Hindi Bengali, Urdu, Tamil and the languages of the south sit alongside writing in English, brining to light the greatest and most engaging writers from a modern India, for the first time truly putting in context the recent 'resurgence' in Indian writing. With insightful biographical and critical introductions to the writers and their work, from Tagore's 'The Postmaster', one of the earliest modern Indian short stories, and his meditations on Bengali nursery rhymes, to A L Rumanian's extraordinary essay in English 'Is There An Indian Way of Thinking'; from Nirad C Chaudhuri writing about the rich Bengalis in Calcutta to Premchand's superb story 'The Chess Players' (made into a film by Satyajit Ray) and from the hugely popular Hindi writer Nirmal Verma's moving story of a young couple to an extract from Vikram Seth's 'The Golden Gate, this selection is the most informative and important anthology of Indian writing to date.
REVIEWS
A very lucid and engaging selection that, for the first time, sets the quite extraordinary phenomenon of Indian writing post-1981 in clear context…The real revelation, however, is in the twenty non-English-writing writers represented here.
-Charles Allen, Spectator
Chaudhuri is a thoughtful commentator…A provocative and persuasive challenge to the orthodoxy about contemporary Indian writing…fascinating translations.
-Robert McCrum, Observer
There is much here to commend…The pen-portraits by the editor, placing writers in their context, are excellent…One thrills to the sight of writers of sensitively and refinement.
-David Robson, Sunday Telegraph
The really valuable thing that Chaudhuri accomplishes…is to enable us to frame the question of what an Indian literature-not an object but a horizon-might look like.
-Alok Rai, Outlook
Contents
Acknowledgements
INTRODUCTION
Modernity and the Vernacular
The Construction of the Indian Novel in English
A Note on the Selection
THE BENGAL RENAISSANCE AND AFTER
Michael Madhusudan Dutt ( 1824-73)
From the 'Anglo-Saxon and the Hindu'
Two Letters
Bankimchandra Chatterjee (1838-94)
A popular Literature for Bengal
The Confession of a Young Bengali
From Rajani
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)
The Postmaster
Five Letters
An Essay on Nursery rhymes
From the Introduction to Thakurmar Jhuli
Sukumar Ray ( 1887-1923)
A topsy-Turvy Tale
Bibhuti Bhushan Banerjee (1894-1950)
From Pather Panchali
Parashuram (Rajshekhar Basu) (1880-1960)
Blue Star
The Jackal-Faced Tongs
Buddhadev Bose (1908-74)
From Tithidore
From An Acre of Green Grass: A Review of Modern Bengali Literature
Mahashweta Devi (b.1926)
Arjun
HINDI
Prem Chand (Dhanpat Rai) (1880-1936)
The Chess Players
Nirmal Verma (b.1929)
Terminal
Krishna Sobti (b.1925)
From Ai Ladki
URDU
Sadat Hasan Manto (1912-55)
Peerun
The Black Shalwar
Qurratulain Hyder (b.1927)
Memories of an Indian Childhood
Naiyer Masud (b.1936)
Sheesha Ghat
THE SOUTH
U R Anantha Murthy (b.1932)
A Horse for the Sun
Vaikon Muhammad Basheer (c.1908-94)
Walla
O V Vijayan (b.1930)
The Rocks
Ambai (C S Lakshmi) (b.1945)
Gifts
PAGES FROM AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
Fakir Mohan Senapati (1843-1918)
From the Story of My Life
Nirad C Chaudhuri (1897-1998)
From the Autobiography of an Unknown Indian
Aubrey Menen (1912-89)
From Dead Man in the Silver Market
Pankaj Mishra (b.1969)
Edmund Wilson in Benares
ENGLISH
R K Narayan ( 1907-2001)
From The English Teacher
Raja Rao (b.1908)
From The Serpent and the Rope
Rusk8in Bond (b.1934)
The Night Train at Deoli
A K Ramanujan (1929-93)
Is there an Indian Way of Thinking? An Informal Essay.
Dom Moraes (B.1947)
From The Emperor Has No Clothes
Adil Jussawalla (b. 1940)
Make mine movies
Salman Rushdie (b.1947)
From Midnight's Children
Vikram Seth (b.1952)
From the Golden Gate
Amitav Ghosh (b.1956)
Tibetan Dinner
Four Corners
Upamanyu Chatterjee (b.1959)
From English August: An Indian Story
Vikram Chandra (b.1961)
Siege in Kailashpada, from a novel in progress
Senetra Gupta (b.1965)
From Memories of Rain
Aamer Hussein (b.1955)
The Colour of a Loved Person's Eyes
Ashok Banker (b.1964)
From Vertigo
Rohit Manchanda (b.1963)
From In the Light of the Black Sun
Notes on Translators
Permissions Acknowledgements