Recent from talks
Indian English literature
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Indian English literature
Indian English literature (IEL), also referred to as Indian Writing in English (IWE), is the body of work by writers in India who write in the English language but whose native or co-native language could be one of the numerous languages of India. Its early history began with the works of Henry Louis Vivian Derozio and Michael Madhusudan Dutt followed by Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo.[citation needed] R. K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao contributed to the growth and popularity of Indian English fiction in the 1930s. It is also associated, in some cases, with the works of members of the Indian diaspora who subsequently compose works in English.
It is often referred to as Indo-Anglian literature (a writing specific term; not to be confused with Anglo-Indian). Although some works may be classified under the genre of postcolonial literature, Indian English literature, evolving since the late 18th century encompasses diverse themes and ideologies, making strict categorization challenging.
Indian English Literature is relatively recent, being nearly two centuries old. The first book written by an Indian in English was The Travels of Dean Mahomet (1794), a travel narrative by Sake Dean Mahomed. The first Indian novel in English, Rajmohan’s Wife (1864), was written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. Govinda Samanta, or the History of a Bengali Raiyat (1874) by Lal Behari Dey and his later Folk-Tales of Bengal (1883) further contributed to early Indian English fiction. Bianca, or The Young Spanish Maiden (1878) by Toru Dutt was the first novel by an Indian woman. Krupabai Satthianadhan’s autobiographical novel Saguna: A Story of Native Christian Life was serialized in The Madras Christian College Magazine (1887–88), followed by her only other novel, Kamala: The Story of a Hindu Life (1894). In 1895, Shevantibai Nikambe wrote an English novel titled Ratanbai: A Sketch of a Bombay High-Caste Hindu Young Wife.
The non-fictional body of prose in Indian English literature from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries includes letters, diaries, political manifestos, articles, speeches, and philosophical works, forming a rich and varied corpus. The speeches of Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore, Chittaranjan Das, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi, and Subhas Chandra Bose played a crucial role in shaping modern India and its use of the English language. Mahatma Gandhi's Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule (1910) was written in an indigenized variety of English, challenging 'the hegemony of Standard English'.
Raja Rao, Indian philosopher and writer, authored Kanthapura and The Serpent and the Rope. Kisari Mohan Ganguli translated the Mahabharata into English, the only time the epic has ever been translated in its entirety into a European language.[citation needed] Rabindranath Tagore wrote in Bengali and English and translated several of his own work into English. Dhan Gopal Mukerji was the first Indian author to win a literary award in the United States. Nirad C. Chaudhuri, a writer of non-fiction, is best known for his The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian (1951), in which he relates his life experiences and influences. P. Lal, a poet, translator, publisher and essayist, founded a press in the 1950s for Indian English writing, Writers Workshop. Ram Nath Kak (1917–1993), a Kashmiri veterinarian, wrote his autobiography Autumn Leaves, which is one of the most vivid portraits of life in 20th century Kashmir.
R. K. Narayan contributed over many decades and was aided by Graham Greene to find a publisher in England.[citation needed] Similar to the way Thomas Hardy used Wessex, Narayan created the fictitious town of Malgudi where he set his novels. Some criticise Narayan for the parochial, detached and closed world that he created in the face of the changing conditions in India at the times in which the stories are set. Others, such as Greene, however, feel that through Malgudi they could vividly understand the Indian experience.[citation needed] Narayan's evocation of small-town life and its experiences through the eyes of the child protagonist Swaminathan in Swami and Friends is a good sample of his writing style. Simultaneous with Narayan's pastoral idylls, Mulk Raj Anand, was similarly gaining recognition for his writing set in rural India, focused on brutality, with divisions of caste, class and religion.[citation needed] According to writer Lakshmi Holmström, "The writers of the 1930s were fortunate because after many years of use, English had become an Indian language used widely and at different levels of society, and therefore they could experiment more boldly and from a more secure position." Kamala Markandeya is an early writer in IEL who has often grouped with the trinity of R.K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao. The contributions of Manoj Das and Manohar Malgoankar to growth of IEL largely remains unacknowledged.
Among the later writers, the most notable is Salman Rushdie, born in India and now living in the UK. Rushdie, with his famous work Midnight's Children (Booker Prize 1981, Booker of Bookers 1992, and Best of the Bookers 2008), ushered in a new trend of writing. He used a hybrid language – English generously peppered with Indian terms – to represent India. His works are categorised as magic realism. Nayantara Sehgal was one of the first female Indian writers in English to receive wide recognition. Her fiction deals with India's elite responding to the crisis engendered by political change. She was awarded the 1986 Sahitya Akademi Award for English, for her novel, Rich Like Us (1985), by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters. Anita Desai, who was shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times, received a Sahitya Akademi Award in 1978 for her novel Fire on the Mountain and a British Guardian Prize for The Village by the Sea. Her daughter Kiran Desai won the 2006 Man Booker Prize for her second novel, The Inheritance of Loss. Ruskin Bond received Sahitya Akademi Award for his collection of short stories Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra in 1992. He is also the author of a historical novel A Flight of Pigeons, which is based on an episode during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
Vikram Seth, author of The Golden Gate (1986) and A Suitable Boy (1994) is a writer who uses a purer English and more realistic themes. Vikram Seth is notable both as an accomplished novelist and a prolific poet.[citation needed]
Hub AI
Indian English literature AI simulator
(@Indian English literature_simulator)
Indian English literature
Indian English literature (IEL), also referred to as Indian Writing in English (IWE), is the body of work by writers in India who write in the English language but whose native or co-native language could be one of the numerous languages of India. Its early history began with the works of Henry Louis Vivian Derozio and Michael Madhusudan Dutt followed by Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo.[citation needed] R. K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao contributed to the growth and popularity of Indian English fiction in the 1930s. It is also associated, in some cases, with the works of members of the Indian diaspora who subsequently compose works in English.
It is often referred to as Indo-Anglian literature (a writing specific term; not to be confused with Anglo-Indian). Although some works may be classified under the genre of postcolonial literature, Indian English literature, evolving since the late 18th century encompasses diverse themes and ideologies, making strict categorization challenging.
Indian English Literature is relatively recent, being nearly two centuries old. The first book written by an Indian in English was The Travels of Dean Mahomet (1794), a travel narrative by Sake Dean Mahomed. The first Indian novel in English, Rajmohan’s Wife (1864), was written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. Govinda Samanta, or the History of a Bengali Raiyat (1874) by Lal Behari Dey and his later Folk-Tales of Bengal (1883) further contributed to early Indian English fiction. Bianca, or The Young Spanish Maiden (1878) by Toru Dutt was the first novel by an Indian woman. Krupabai Satthianadhan’s autobiographical novel Saguna: A Story of Native Christian Life was serialized in The Madras Christian College Magazine (1887–88), followed by her only other novel, Kamala: The Story of a Hindu Life (1894). In 1895, Shevantibai Nikambe wrote an English novel titled Ratanbai: A Sketch of a Bombay High-Caste Hindu Young Wife.
The non-fictional body of prose in Indian English literature from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries includes letters, diaries, political manifestos, articles, speeches, and philosophical works, forming a rich and varied corpus. The speeches of Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore, Chittaranjan Das, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi, and Subhas Chandra Bose played a crucial role in shaping modern India and its use of the English language. Mahatma Gandhi's Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule (1910) was written in an indigenized variety of English, challenging 'the hegemony of Standard English'.
Raja Rao, Indian philosopher and writer, authored Kanthapura and The Serpent and the Rope. Kisari Mohan Ganguli translated the Mahabharata into English, the only time the epic has ever been translated in its entirety into a European language.[citation needed] Rabindranath Tagore wrote in Bengali and English and translated several of his own work into English. Dhan Gopal Mukerji was the first Indian author to win a literary award in the United States. Nirad C. Chaudhuri, a writer of non-fiction, is best known for his The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian (1951), in which he relates his life experiences and influences. P. Lal, a poet, translator, publisher and essayist, founded a press in the 1950s for Indian English writing, Writers Workshop. Ram Nath Kak (1917–1993), a Kashmiri veterinarian, wrote his autobiography Autumn Leaves, which is one of the most vivid portraits of life in 20th century Kashmir.
R. K. Narayan contributed over many decades and was aided by Graham Greene to find a publisher in England.[citation needed] Similar to the way Thomas Hardy used Wessex, Narayan created the fictitious town of Malgudi where he set his novels. Some criticise Narayan for the parochial, detached and closed world that he created in the face of the changing conditions in India at the times in which the stories are set. Others, such as Greene, however, feel that through Malgudi they could vividly understand the Indian experience.[citation needed] Narayan's evocation of small-town life and its experiences through the eyes of the child protagonist Swaminathan in Swami and Friends is a good sample of his writing style. Simultaneous with Narayan's pastoral idylls, Mulk Raj Anand, was similarly gaining recognition for his writing set in rural India, focused on brutality, with divisions of caste, class and religion.[citation needed] According to writer Lakshmi Holmström, "The writers of the 1930s were fortunate because after many years of use, English had become an Indian language used widely and at different levels of society, and therefore they could experiment more boldly and from a more secure position." Kamala Markandeya is an early writer in IEL who has often grouped with the trinity of R.K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao. The contributions of Manoj Das and Manohar Malgoankar to growth of IEL largely remains unacknowledged.
Among the later writers, the most notable is Salman Rushdie, born in India and now living in the UK. Rushdie, with his famous work Midnight's Children (Booker Prize 1981, Booker of Bookers 1992, and Best of the Bookers 2008), ushered in a new trend of writing. He used a hybrid language – English generously peppered with Indian terms – to represent India. His works are categorised as magic realism. Nayantara Sehgal was one of the first female Indian writers in English to receive wide recognition. Her fiction deals with India's elite responding to the crisis engendered by political change. She was awarded the 1986 Sahitya Akademi Award for English, for her novel, Rich Like Us (1985), by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters. Anita Desai, who was shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times, received a Sahitya Akademi Award in 1978 for her novel Fire on the Mountain and a British Guardian Prize for The Village by the Sea. Her daughter Kiran Desai won the 2006 Man Booker Prize for her second novel, The Inheritance of Loss. Ruskin Bond received Sahitya Akademi Award for his collection of short stories Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra in 1992. He is also the author of a historical novel A Flight of Pigeons, which is based on an episode during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
Vikram Seth, author of The Golden Gate (1986) and A Suitable Boy (1994) is a writer who uses a purer English and more realistic themes. Vikram Seth is notable both as an accomplished novelist and a prolific poet.[citation needed]