Rewriting India

A study of eight major contemporary Indian authors who write in English-Arun Kolatkar, Keki N. Daruwalla, Amit Chaudhuri, Pankaj Mishra, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Tabish Khair, Susan Visvanathan, and Jeet Thayil-this book offers a reading of their works with a focus on themes, formal characteristics, and influences. As Bruce King analyses aesthetic, social, psychological, and metaphysical dimensions of the work of these writers, certain recurring topics knit the chapters together: how modern Indian poetry in English differs from that of nationalist writers; the role modern Indian poetry played in establishing a literary tradition of depicting contemporary Indian life; and the mapping of actual places in India in contrast to the generalized spiritual India of the Brahmin nationalists. The book shows what later prose writers learned from the poets and the importance of location to the writers as well as the changing social, cultural, and political contexts of Indian literature.