Author: Tabish Khair
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2005
Language: English
Pages: 407
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0195679032
Description
Working with a redefined, Marxian concept - that of 'alienation', Khair presents a reading of contemporary Indian fiction in English that sets out to study whether it is possible to write in English about people who often speak little or no English. This book successfully addresses Indian English fiction without trying to fit it into a 'postcolonial' mould. Employing the concept of 'discourse' and formulating class divisions in emblematic 'Babu-Coolie' terms, the book presents thorough - and at times surprising - readings of authors like Raja Rao, Anita Desai, R K Narayan, Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, and others.
Chapters on specific writers are combined with essays on general themes like the industrial landscape, caste and gender. Khair's concern with the issues of power and hegemony and philosophical depth to his reading of literature as literature. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of Indian English fiction, sociologists, literature critics as well as general readers.
PRAISE FOR BABU FICTIONS:
Khair is successful in his bid to address Indian English texts without6 mutilating them to fit postcolonial paradigms.-Meenakshi Mukherjee, former Professor, Delhi University
- It is splendidly written, well researched, and balances theory and critical practice extremely well. The interweaving of literary and social motifs is also deftly accomplished.
-Terry Eagleton, Warton Professor of English Literature, Oxford University