Mulk Raj Anand is one of the best known novelists in English in India. Translated into many languages in India as well as abroad, he has been universally acclaimed as a progressive writer.
The present anthology of recent critical essays probes into his internationally reputed novels like Untouchable, Coolie, Gauri as well as his various collections of Short Stories. The critical perspective is fresh and innovative, embracing the latest critical theories and schools. The essays come up with novel insights into themes and characters, form and design in the texts explored.
The structural and rhetorical devices employed in the texts have also been analysed threadbare. A detailed interview with Anand facilitates a peep into the writer’s workshop, revealing hitherto unexplored facets of Anand’s artistic persona.
A welcome addition to Fiction Studies. An indispensable collection of articles for students, teachers and researchers in Literary Theory, Fiction, Indian English Literature, Sociology of Literature and Progressivism.
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 Fellow-ship, 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 in a Major U.G.C. 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 Fiction of Nayantara Sahgal. His areas of interest are: Literary Theory, Comparative Literature, Commonwealth and Indian English Literature and Third World Fiction.
Dr. M. Rajeshwar is Assistant Professor of English at Kakatiya University, Warangal, Andhra Pradesh. His published works of criticism include The Novels of Wole Soyinka (1990) and Indian Women Novelists and Psychoanalysis (1998). The books he has edited are : Post-modernism and English Literature (1999), The Novels of Anita Desai : A Critical Study (2000), Lifescapes : Telugu Short Stories by Naveen and Indian Fiction in English. He has been the Associate Editor of the prestigious Kakatiya Journal of English Studies for several years. He has published 26 articles on Indian, African and American fiction in such reputed journals as New Quest, Indian Literature, The Journal of Indian Writing in English, Commonwealth Quarterly, The Commonwealth Review, Revaluations and Triveni. Many of these articles have been repeatedly anthologized.
Dr. Rajeshwar is currently working on a project entitled “The Discovery of Regional Language Fiction : A Study of Ten Major Telugu Novels” as part of a fellowship awarded by the Department of Culture, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, New Delhi.
