The Idea of Indian Literature
The Idea of Indian Literature

Author: Preetha Mani

Publisher: Northwestern University Press

Published: 2022-08-15

Total Pages: 413

ISBN-13: 0810145014

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Indian literature is not a corpus of texts or literary concepts from India, argues Preetha Mani, but a provocation that seeks to resolve the relationship between language and literature, written in as well as against English. Examining canonical Hindi and Tamil short stories from the crucial decades surrounding decolonization, Mani contends that Indian literature must be understood as indeterminate, propositional, and reflective of changing dynamics between local, regional, national, and global readerships. In The Idea of Indian Literature, she explores the paradox that a single canon can be written in multiple languages, each with their own evolving relationships to one another and to English. Hindi, representing national aspirations, and Tamil, epitomizing the secessionist propensities of the region, are conventionally viewed as poles of the multilingual continuum within Indian literature. Mani shows, however, that during the twentieth century, these literatures were coconstitutive of one another and of the idea of Indian literature itself. The writers discussed here—from short-story forefathers Premchand and Pudumaippittan to women trailblazers Mannu Bhandari and R. Chudamani—imagined a pan-Indian literature based on literary, rather than linguistic, norms, even as their aims were profoundly shaped by discussions of belonging unique to regional identity. Tracing representations of gender and the uses of genre in the shifting thematic and aesthetic practices of short vernacular prose writing, the book offers a view of the Indian literary landscape as itself a field for comparative literature.

Fiction as History
Fiction as History

Author: Vasudha Dalmia

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 2019-08-01

Total Pages: 460

ISBN-13: 1438476051

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Explains the Hindi novel’s role in anticipating and creating the story of middle-class modernity and modernization in North India. Vasudha Dalmia offers a panoramic view of the intellectual and cultural life of North India over a century, from the aftermath of the 1857 uprising to the end of the Nehruvian era. The North’s historical cities, rooted in an Indo-Persianate culture, began changing more slowly than the Presidency towns founded by the British. Dalmia takes up eight canonical Hindi novels set in six of these cities—Agra, Allahabad, Banaras, Delhi, Lahore, and Lucknow—to trace a literary history of domestic and political cataclysms. Her exploration of the emerging Hindu middle classes, changing personal and professional ambitions, and new notions of married life provides a vivid sense of urban modernity. She argues that the radical social transformations associated with post-1857 urban restructuring, and the political flux resulting from social reform, Gandhian nationalism, communalism, Partition, and the Cold War shaped the realm of the intimate as much as the public sphere. Love and friendship, notions of privacy, attitudes to women’s work, and relationships within households are among the book’s major themes.

The Hindi Canon
The Hindi Canon

Author: Mrityunjay Tripathi

Publisher: Tulika Books

Published: 2018-10-20

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 9788193401590

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This book was first published in Hindi under the title Hindi Alochana mein Canon-Nirman ki Prakriya in 2015. It was acclaimed as one of the first critical studies of the processes of canonization (pratimanikaran) in Hindi. Indeed, the word 'canon' was used by the author to ask a new set of questions about the development of languages of criticism in Hindi, moving beyond the available vocabulary of man (worth), mulya (value), pratiman (epitome), and manak (evaluation). In the process, the theological roots of canon formation were shown to be foundational in the making of the Hindi critical lexicon and canon. This book presents a systematic but critical account of the beginnings, development and history of the process of canonization in Hindi via such exemplary figures as George Grierson, Garcin de Tassy, Ramchandra Shukla, Hazari Prasad Dwivedi, Ram Vilas Sharma, Muktibodh, Namwar Singh, Nirmal Verma, and Vijaydev Narayan Sahi. It proposes an intellectual history of Hindi criticism in the twentieth century, which today faces the challenges of a decanonization move in the form of feminist and Dalit thought.

The Hindi Public Sphere 1920–1940
The Hindi Public Sphere 1920–1940

Author: Francesca Orsini

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2009-04-29

Total Pages: 696

ISBN-13: 0199088802

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This book analyses how a language became the instrument with which the contours of a new nation were traced. Mapping the success of formalized Hindi in creating a regional public sphere in north India in the early twentieth century, the book explores the way many educated Indians, influenced by the British ideas and institutions, expressed interest in new concepts such as progress, unity, and a common cultural heritage. From the development of new codes and institutions to a language that helped to create space for argument and debate, the book gives an overview of the Hindi public sphere. Furthermore, it throws light on the work of Vasudha Dalmia about the nascent Hindi public sphere and brings to light how early-twentieth-century discourses on language, literature, gender, history, and politics form the core of the Hindi culture that exists today.

Realism in the Twentieth-Century Indian Novel
Realism in the Twentieth-Century Indian Novel

Author: Ulka Anjaria

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012-10-08

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 1139577123

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Early twentieth-century Indian novels often depict the harsh material conditions of life under British colonial rule. Even so, these 'realist' novels are profoundly imaginative. In this study, Ulka Anjaria challenges the distinction between early twentieth-century social realism and modern-day magical realism, arguing that realism in the colony functioned as a mode of experimentation and aesthetic innovation – not merely as mimesis of the 'real world'. By examining novels from the 1930s across several Indian languages, Anjaria reveals how Indian authors used realist techniques to imagine alternate worlds, to invent new subjectivities and relationships with the Indian nation and to question some of the most entrenched values of modernity. Addressing issues of colonialism, Indian nationalism, the rise of Gandhi, religion and politics, and the role of literature in society, Anjaria's careful analysis will complement graduate study and research in English literature, South Asian studies and postcolonial studies.

The Vintage Book of Modern Indian Literature
The Vintage Book of Modern Indian Literature

Author: Amit Chaudhuri

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2004-11-09

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 037571300X

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In recent years American readers have been thrilling to the work of such Indian writers as Salman Rushdie and Vikram Seth. Now this extravagant and wonderfully discerning anthology unfurls the full diversity of Indian literature from the 1850s to the present, presenting today’s brightest talents in the company of their distinguished forbearers and likely heirs. The thirty-eight authors collected by novelist Amit Chaudhuri write not only in English but also in Hindi, Bengali, and Urdu. They include Rabindranath Tagore, arguably the first international literary celebrity, chronicling the wistful relationship between a village postal inspector and a servant girl, and Bibhuti Bhushan Banerjee, represented by an excerpt from his classic novel about an impoverished Bengali childhood, Pather Panchali. Here, too, are selections from Nirad C. Chaudhuri’s Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, R. K. Narayan’s The English Teacher, and Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children alongside a high-spirited nonsense tale, a drily funny account of a pre-Partition Muslim girlhood, and a Bombay policier as gripping as anything by Ed McBain. Never before has so much of the subcontinent’s writing been made available in a single volume.

Handbook of Twentieth-Century Literatures of India
Handbook of Twentieth-Century Literatures of India

Author: Nalini Natarajan

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 1996-09-09

Total Pages: 451

ISBN-13: 031303267X

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India has a rich literary assemblage produced by its many different regional traditions, religious faiths, ethnic subcultures and linguistic groups. The published literature of the 20th century is a particularly interesting subject and is the focus of this book, as it represents the provocative conjuncture of the transitions of Indian modernity. This reference book surveys the major regional literatures of contemporary India in the context of the country's diversity and heterogeneity. Chapters are devoted to particular regions, and the arrangement of the work invites comparisons of literary traditions. Chapters provide extensive bibliographies of primary works, thus documenting the creative achievement of numerous contemporary Indian authors. Some chapters cite secondary works as well, and the volume concludes with a list of general works providing further information. An introductory essay overviews theoretical concerns, ideological and aesthetic considerations, developments in various genres, and the history of publishing in regional literatures. The introduction provides a context for approaching the chapters that follow, each of which is devoted to the literature of a particular region. Each chapter begins with a concise introductory section. The body of each chapter is structured according to social and historical events, literary forms, or broad descriptive or analytic trends, depending on the particular subject matter. Each chapter then closes with an extensive bibliography of primary works, thus documenting the rich literary tradition of the region. Some chapters also cite secondary sources as an aid to the reader. The final chapters of the book address special topics, such as sub-cultural literatures, or the interplay between literature and film. A list of additional sources of general information concludes the volume.