Indian Literature in English incorporates Indian themes and experience in a framework that is a blend of Indian and Western aesthetics. This often confronts creative writers with a series of difficult choices. Involved in an intractable tight rope walking, how the literatures respond to the exacting requirement of making their experience fit an a priori mould is sought to be examined in the present Volume of this anthology.
Aiming to capture in all its complex nuances the distinctive identity of Indian English Literature — as darshan and as a formal artistic construct — against the background of the particular problems confronting the creative writers, the collection includes critiques of the foremost as well as the latest works of a number of writers — Tagore, Sri Aurobindo, Jayant Mahapatra, Mulk Raj Anand, R.K. Narayan, Bhabani Bhattacharya, Manohar Malgonkar, Kamala Markandaya, Ruth Prawer Jhabwala, Anita Desai, Arun Joshi, Namita Gokhale, Malayatoor Ramakrishanan and Makarand Paranjape.
Affording fresh perspectives on popular works, facilitating a through revision of cliched readings, and incisive studies of recent works, the present Volume steers Indian English critical practice to a new direction.
DR. MANMOHAN K. BHATNAGAR is Professor, Department of English, M.D. University, Rohtak (Haryana), India. A distinguished scholar and a veteran teacher of more than two decades' standing, he has been Chairman, Department of English, M.D. University, Rohtak and also Chairman, State Inter-University Common Syllabi Committee in English of Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra and M.D. University, Rohtak.
Having been selected for the prestigious Commonwealth Academic Staff Fellowship, Professor Bhatnagar has been a U.G.C.-empanelled Resource Person and part of the Guest Faculty at a number of U.G.C.-sponsored Refresher Courses for College Lecturers. He has also chaired individual sessions at National Seminars. He has been a U.G.C. Fellow at Panjab University, Chandigarh and a U.G.C. Research Associate at University of Poona, Poona. Currently, he is engaged in working as Principal Investigator on a U.G.C. Major Project on Indian English Fiction.
Professor Bhatnagar's publications include, besides a number of research articles in prestigious journals in India and abroad, Political Consciousness in Indian English Writing, Perspectives and The Novels of Nayantara Sahgal. His areas of interest are: Literary Theory, Comparative Literature, Commonwealth and Indian English Literature and Third World Fiction.
