• ISBN13: 9780198065258
• Binding: Hardcover
• Subject: English Literature
• Publisher: Oxford UP
• Publisher Imprint: Oxford UP
• Publication Date: January 1, 2009
• Pages: 288
• Original Price: INR 695.0
• Language: English
• Edition: N/A
• Item Weight: 500 grams
• BISAC Subject(s): Literary and Historical / General

Mridula Garg’s novel sensitively portrays the predicament of two generations during and immediately after the Independence Movement. Anitya moves beyond the theme of Independence, the trauma of Partition, and victimhood. Focusing on everyday personal battles between principles and self-interest, it shows how high moral standards turn quite easily to betrayal in the face of personal gratification. Anitya is about the pain of ordinary Indians who failed to keep their tryst with destiny as they travelled from the crossroads to an unforeseen end. Using flashbacks, the novel depicts the struggle of its characters as they try to adjust to the counterfeit democracy they find themselves in. The imagined conversations between the two central characters, Avijit and Anitya, reveal how, under the veil of respectable fronts, secrets and emotional failures corrode nearly everything.

Mridula Garg, formerly lecturer in Delhi University, is one of the most widely read and discussed contemporary Hindi writers. She is the recipient of a number of prestigious awards, including the Vyas Sanman for her novel Kathgulab in 2004; the Sahityakar Sanman, Hindi Academy, Delhi; and M.P. Sahitya Parishad's Awards for Uske Hisse ki Dhoop (novel), and Jadoo ka Kaleen (play).
Seema Segal runs the Munshi Premchand Memorial School in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, focusing on the underprivileged. She works with abstracts and landscapes in art, and both reviews and translates literature for children.
Krishna Dutt Paliwal, well-known author, was earlier a Reader at IGNOU and also served as Head, Department of Hindi, University of Delhi.