‘Another Canon: Indian Texts and Traditions’ in English traces the development of Indian English literary and textual practice over a period of seven decades, focussing on classic texts which have fallen beyond the scope of the established canon. Central to this volume is an inquiry into the nature of Indian modernity. Through careful and path-breaking readings of such important writers as Mulk Raj Anand, R. K. Narayan, Raja Rao, M. Ananthanarayanan, Nayantara Sahgal, Anita Desai, Bharati Mukherjee, U. R. Anantha Murthy, Kiran Nagarkar, Vikram Seth, and Upamanyu Chatterjee, the author constructs what may be called ‘another canon,’ shedding new light on literary and critical practice in post-colonial India.

Useful both to specialists and general readers, these engaging and insightful interpretations of key Indian texts enhance our understanding of the making of modern Indian consciousness and culture. In addition, the book also offers crucial theoretical insights into the distinguishing features of the novel in India, especially of the fiction of the 1980s and 1990s.

Makarand R. Paranjape is currently Professor of English at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Anthem South Asian Studies

Preface; Introduction: Situating the Contemporary Indian (English) Novel; Conversations in Bloomsbury: T S Eliot through Indian Eyes; Comrade Kirillov: A Critique of Communism; ‘A Horse and Two Goats’: Language, Culture and Representation in R K Narayan’s Fiction; The Tale of an Indian Education: The Silver Pilgrimage; ‘Clip Joint’: Modernity and its Discontents; Cultural and Political Allegory in Rich Like Us; Towards Redefining Boundaries: The Indo-Canadian Encounter in Days and Nights in Calcutta; The Golden Gate and the Quest for Self-Realization; Journey to Ithaca: An Epistle on the Fiction of the 1980s and 1990s; Cuckold in Indian English Fiction; Stephanians and Others: The Tale of Two Novelists