Commonwealth Literature today stands for literature(s) in English written in the commonwealth countries outside the Anglo-American tradition. What is common between the diverse members of the commonwealth in spite of their different calendars of Independence and ethnological, cultural, political as also topographical set-ups is that all these countries shared the common colonial experience. So, from India to Nigeria, Canada to Kenya, Australia to Pakistan we can discern the varying patterns of a common human experience and emergence of cultural nationalism leading to an emphasis on their distinctiveness in literary heritage and assertion of cultural identity. Commonwealth Literature thus presents a rich variety of aesthetic and cultural experience.
The essays collected in this volume spanning different countries and periods try to offer a taste of this interesting variety. The range covered here stretches from West African drama to South African fiction, Australian and Caribbean literature to that of Indian diaspora and South Asian poetry of the SAARC countries. Discussions on Indian literature cover the varied areas from devotional mysticism to realistic social satire, myth-oriented novel to feminism, dialogism and reassessment of postcolonial theories.
The authors focused in this discussion promises a colourful spectrum; they include Wole Soyinka, Ahmed Essop, Salman Rushdie, David Malouf, Wilson Harris, Patrick White, Rohinton Mistry, G.V. Desani, Aurobindo, Manohar Magonkar, R.K. Narayan, Gurcharan Das, Arundhati Roy, Jhumpa Lahiri, Kamala Das, K.V. Venkataramani, Margaret Craven, along with a host of SAARC poets.
The volume will be useful for the students and scholars of Commonwealth Literature, and will also prove interesting to the common reader.
Mohit K. Ray, a full Professor since 1982, is one of the seniormost professors in the country. He has published three books and a large number of research papers in scholarly journals in India and abroad, which reflect his wide range of scholarship including Criticism, Comparative Literature, New Literatures, Canonical Literature, Comparative Poetics and Translation Studies.
Professor Ray has attended and chaired sessions as an invited participant in many international Conferences, Seminars, and Colloquia held in different parts of the globe — England, France, Portugal, Austria, Finland, Estonia, America, Canada, Japan, Hong Kong, etc.
Professor Ray has studied several languages including Latin, Sanskrit, Arabic, French, German.
He has edited several anthologies of critical studies and edits three research journals including The Atlantic Critical Review.
Professor Ray is a distinguished member of many international bodies including Association International de Littérature Comparée, Paris, and Association International des Critiques Littéraires, Paris.
