History of the Indian Novel in English

Description

Cover Half-title Title page Copyright information Table of contents List of figures Notes on contributors Acknowledgments Introduction: Literary Pasts, Presents, and Futures A History of the Indian Novel in English Bhasha Modernities and the Question of English Reading the Postcolonial Contemporaneity and History Terminology and Structure of the Book Notes 1 Beginnings: Rajmohan’s Wife and the Novel in India The Colonial Public Sphere and the Politics of Print Translation and Cultural Transactions The Novel and Colonial Society Persons, Objects, and Habitus Space, Plot, and the Colonial Uncanny The Lives of Women and the Future of the Novel Notes 2 The Epistemic Work of Literary Realism: Two Novels from Colonial India Reference: A Theoretical Detour Novelistic Discourse and Epistemic Access Conclusion Notes 3 “Because Novels Are True, and Histories Are False”: Indian Women Writing Fiction in English, 1860–1918 Toru Dutt: Romance and Cosmopolitanism Krupabai Satthianadhan and Ramabai: Conversion and Reform Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain: Feminist Utopias Swarnakumari Devi Ghosal: An Unfinished Song Notes 4 When the Pen Was a Sword: The Radical Career of the Progressive Novel in India Is the Anglophone Indian Novel also a Progressive Novel? The Retrospective Politics of Exclusion The Origins of Progressive Writing: Local, National, Colonial, International Anglophone Novelists and the Contested Terrain of the Progressive Novel The Varied Careers of Anglophone Progressive Novelists Notes 5 The Road Less Traveled: Modernity and Gandhianism in the Indian English Novel Modernity and Antiquity in Raja Rao’s Kanthapura Narayan’s Invention of Tradition Anand’s Revolutionary Socialism Notes 6 The Modernist Novel in India: Paradigms and Practices Locating Indian Modernism Phases of Modernism Theorizing Modernist Realism Anand’s Modernist Realism Premchand’s Theory of Realism 7 “Handcuffed to History”: Partition and the Indian Novel in English Harbingers of a Melancholic Modernity The Big Fat Indian (Partition) Novel Geo-Desire and the (Continued) Search for the Sacred Conclusion Notes 8 Women, Reform, and Nationalism in Three Novels of Muslim Life Debating Purdah and Polygamy Women Outside the Home Independence and Partition Notes 9 Found in Translation: Self, Caste, and Other in Three Modern Texts Translation in the Indian Context Colonial Modernity in Tagore’s Gora Brahminism as the Anti-Modern in Anantha Murthy’s Samskara The Rise of a Modern Dalit Consciousness in Valmiki’s Joothan Conclusion Notes 10 Emergency Fictions Emergency Fiction Prefiguring Emergency Truth Vindicated Configuring Emergency Coda Notes 11 Cosmopolitanism and the Sonic Imaginary in Salman Rushdie Remembering Max Ophüls “O, My Shoes Are Japanese” A Turn to High Culture Mother Tongue as Palimpsest Notes 12 Postcolonial Realism in the Novels of Rohinton Mistry Compositional Structure Looking Too Closely Tipping the Balance Accommodating the Past Conclusion Notes 13 Far from the Nation, Closer to Home: Privacy, Domesticity, and Regionalism in Indian English Fiction “Politics Without Issues”: Shashi Deshpande and Sunetra Gupta Rooted Dislocations Deep-Rooted Shadows Home Truths Notes 14 Ecologies of Intimacy: Gender, Sexuality, and Environment in Indian Fiction Intimacy and Disability in Transition Rethinking Sexuality and Revolution Conclusion: Indigenous Ecologies, Queer Intimacy, and the Postcolonial City Notes 15 Some Uses of History: Historiography, Politics, and the Indian Novel Claiming History Recovering Buried History History under Threat Notes 16 Virtue, Virtuosity, and the Virtual: Experiments in the Contemporary Indian English Novel Virtue’s Double-Bind Virtuoso Performatives Virtual Reality Notes 17 Of Dystopias and Deliriums: The Millennial Novel in India Postcolonial Dystopias and the Refusal of Future Atrocities of the Now: Two Fictional Examples Delirious Forms Coda: Unreasoned Damage Notes 18 “Which Colony? Which Block?”: Violence, (Post-)Colonial Urban Planning, and the Indian Novel “Lashings of the Ultraviolent” Colonial Planning, Post-Colonial City Infrastructural Fiction Notes 19 Post-Humanitarianism and the Indian Novel in English Small Global Things Humans as Animals Perverse Human Rights Notes 20 Chetan Bhagat: Remaking the Novel in India The Culture of Books “New” Fictions: Chetan Bhagat A New Purpose and Presence? Notes 21 “New India/n Woman”: Agency and Identity in Post-Millennial Chick Lit The Rise of the Literary Popular: Chick Lit Desai and Deshpande: Deciding on Silence Kala and Hasan: Deciding on Choice Conclusion Notes 22 The Politics and Art of Indian English Fantasy Fiction “Sultana’s Dream” and the Origins of Political Fantasy Mythical Predecessors The Success of Fantasy Fiction Conclusion Notes 23 The Indian Graphic Novel Comics in India before the Graphic Novel The Indian Graphic Novel Appears Recent and Future Developments of the Indian Graphic Novel Notes 24 “Coming to a Multiplex Near You”: Indian Fiction in English and New Bollywood Cinema Worlds Apart World-Building Notes 25 Caste, Complicity, and the Contemporary Modernity and Contemporaneity The Politics of Humiliation The Politics of Ressentiment Conclusion Notes Works Cited Primary Sources Secondary Sources Index