Abstract
Introduction
A host of new publishers have come on the scene in India. Popular fiction flourishes as never before. A large number of non-fictional works have appeared (the bibliography below lists only a selection). Many of them have been shortlisted for “First Book” prizes in 2012. Naresh Fernandes won the 2012 Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize for Taj Mahal Foxtrot: The Story of Bombay’s Jazz Age (2011). The authors shortlisted for the Tata First Book Literary Award included Nilanjana Roy for her novel The Wildings; Sudha Shah; Sudheendra Kulkarni; Naresh Fernandes for Taj Mahal Foxtrot; Ruchir Sharma and Aman Sethi. The First Book Award went to Ruchir Sharma (head of Emerging Market Equities at Morgan Stanley). Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles discusses how smaller countries like Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey and Poland are likely to have better economic growth than China, Brazil or India. Sudha Shah’s The King in Exile: The Fall of the Royal Family of Burma is based on historical research; events here figure in Amitav Ghosh’s novel The Glass Palace. Sudheendra Kulkarni’s Music of the Spinning Wheel: Mahatma Gandhi’s Manifesto for the Internet Age suggests that Gandhi’s approach is relevant for the twenty-first century. Aman Sethi’s A Free Man (wrongly listed under Fiction in the 2011 India bibliography) won the Crossword non-fiction award for the best work of non-fiction. Subtitled A True Story of Life and Death in Delhi, it centres around Mohammed Ashraf, a forty-year-old homeless day labourer. Serious issues relating to immigrants, such as the search for identity, culture clash and nostalgia for the homeland, are viewed through a personal lens in Shoba Narayan’s Return to India: A Memoir. It is a very readable sequel to her Monsoon Diary: A Memoir with Recipes (2003).
Poet, dancer and novelist Tishani Doshi has brought out her second collection, Everything Begins Elsewhere. As her first collection Countries of the Body, which won the Forward Poetry Prize 2006, suggests, the body is central to her work, but the poems here go beyond the physical body to consider its metaphysical and social aspects. Many academics have published new collections. Sushil Kumar Sharma, Professor of English at the University of Allahabad, has published his second collection of verse, The Door Is Half Open. Ranu Uniyal, Professor of English at Lucknow University, has brought out December Poems, her second collection. Amarendra Kumar’s Voice Modulations is his sixth collection; the poet’s reflections on life, especially life in contemporary India, are expressed through vivid images. Some of the best poems in these volumes, such as Sharma’s “Ganga Mata: A Prayer” and Ranu Uniyal’s “Ahalya to Ram”, are closely linked to Hindu mythology. Kumar’s “Epic Shadow Dance” makes good use of the Ramayana. The poet clearly indicates Ram’s lack of feeling in giving priority to the public over the personal: Not flint and stone, Ram hardly resists a cardiac stone formation here and on the burnished throne in his legendary rule of unswerving, unsparing levelling justice. Ears sealed to the growing rising birthcry in Sita’s womb in the boom of a random murmur in his wide open public ear.
Altaf Tyrewala’s Ministry of Hurt Sentiments is very different; it is a 100-page poem which “celebrates the dystopia that is modern-day Mumbai”. He writes: They claim this culture is too old Its centre will always hold Even if its sitarists twang out the blues in teental And e-pandits demand payment over PayPal.
Tyrewala’s debut novel No God in Sight (2006) was a tour de force in terms of narrative strategy: it is structured in a series of short first-person narratives, with each episode linked to the next through the interaction of the characters. Different areas of Bombay come alive through the voices of the various “protagonists”. Ministry of Hurt Sentiments can be read as a short novella in verse, as the omniscient poet comments on a variety of characters, such as a Dalit scavenger, a murderous Hindu mob, a limbless beggar and a property dealer. Tyrewala’s predominant emotion seems to be anger: as he comments in an interview, “Each sentence should be like a dynamite stick about to explode”. Many writers such as Salman Rushdie, Suketu Mehta, Vikram Chandra and Anita Desai have written about Bombay. 2012 witnessed the publication of three novels, including Jeet Thayil’s Narcopolis, centred around the city.
Jeet Thayil (b.1959) performance poet and musician, deservedly won the Sahitya Akademi award for his fourth collection of poems, These Errors Are Correct (2008). The poems reveal a mastery of poetic forms – the sonnet, the ghazal, terza rima, the sestina, and the canzone; Thayil also employs free verse. Dedicated to his wife Shakti Bhatt, who passed away in 2007 (when she was only 27 years old), These Errors Are Correct is about grief, love and loss. Earlier collections like English (2004), Apocalypso (1997) and Gemini (1992, with Vijay Nambisan) were about drugs, alcohol and sex. His first novel, Narcopolis, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Hindu Literary Prize and the Economist Crossword Book Award and it won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. The novel, in four parts, begins with the narrator’s “Prologue” in the form of a seven-page long sentence, punctuated with commas and dashes (in imitation of James Joyce). The narrator, like Jeet Thayil himself, is a “Syrian Christian, a Jacobite”. After an indulgent description of opium smoking, the main character is introduced – Dimple, a young boy sold into a brothel when eight or nine years old and castrated. At night he (now “she”) works in the eunuch’s brothel, during the day in Rashid’s opium den. She starts taking opium to relieve pain, having been introduced to it by Mr Lee, a Chinese refugee who ran away from Mao’s Cultural Revolution which destroyed his father (a writer) and his mother. The novel is full of descriptions of the seamy side of life in Bombay: the Pathar Maar (the “stone killer” who murdered poor men and women sleeping on the pavements, the Bombay blasts of 1992, and the anti–Muslim riots of 1993). Thayil has said in interviews that the novel is a celebration of Bombay, but it is a Bombay which has only pimps, drunken poets, gangsters and eunuchs. There is a long and exaggerated description of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Lee escapes by requisitioning a jeep and driving through China and Burma to India, finally landing in Bombay because he liked the sea, “It was the only thing about Bombay that did not disgust him.” Rather than an account of the city, Narcopolis is a compilation of descriptions of copulation, violence and drug use, garnished with words from Indian languages, often misspelled. The rioting mob spares Dimple, “Nikaal, he told her” (niklo means “go away”, nikaal means “take out”). But the Journal of Commonwealth Literature bibliography is perhaps not the appropriate forum to discuss the politics of literary awards.
Three other works published in 2012 give a much better picture of life in Bombay. Kiran Nagarkar’s The Extras can be considered a kind of sequel to his Ravan and Eddie (1995). Ravan (actually Ram) Pawar and Eddie Coutinho are still living on different floors of a rundown tenement and dream of making it big in the Hindi film industry. After failed attempts at playing in bands and at a variety of other occupations, they drift into working as extras, “junior artists”, in films. Nagarkar writes with great insight and humour about Bombay’s struggling lower middle class – Ravan’s mother makes ends meet by supplying food to workers, while Eddie and his mother live on the earnings of his elder sister Pieta who gives up her dream of studying in medical college to work as a secretary. The best part of this novelist’s fluent language is that he does not use non-English words to build up this world. The narrative is interspersed with little essays (in a different font) commenting on life in India. Though many of the characters are eccentric, and some incidents absurd, Nagarkar never loses touch with reality.
Poet and journalist Jerry Pinto has written widely on Bombay and the Hindi film industry. His first novel Em and the Big Hoom won The Hindu Literary Prize. It is a powerful and moving story of a middle-class family in Bombay, the first-person narrative of a boy with a mother suffering from depression. He and his sister refer to her as “Em”. Imelda is a young girl from Goa, who marries Augustine, a village boy who has struggled to become an engineer. The children refer to their father as “the Big Hoom”, a tower of strength who is managing the family in spite of his wife’s many suicide attempts. Her impoverished family were not happy with the marriage, as she was the only earning member, forced to start working as a typist and secretary, like Eddie’s sister in The Extras. Perhaps Imelda’s mental illness started after her marriage. Em and the Big Hoom is a touching account of a son’s love for his mother, chronicling the highs and lows of his mother’s moods.
Once upon a Hill by Kalpish Ratna (the pen name of the joint authors Kalpana Swaminathan and Ishrat Syed) is part fable, part natural history. The “protagonist” is Gilbert Hill, a sixty-metre-high column of rock in the heart of Andheri, a crowded Bombay suburb. The authors go back sixty million years in time to investigate the geological origin of this rock formation that has been almost destroyed by quarrying. The book has characters like “a curious cartographer, a frog, a toad and a village where an epidemic had raged more than a century ago”. It is a powerful appeal to Bombay to preserve its natural heritage.
The environs of Nizamuddin in Delhi are lovingly recreated in Nilanjana Roy’s The Wildings, the most unusual book of the year. It is a kind of animal fable, with allegorical significance, presenting humans from the point of view of the wildings, the street cats living near Nizamuddin; they are friendly with the clan of canal cats, and the cats of the Nizamuddin dargah, fed by the fakir who lives there. Animals and birds use a special language “junglee” to communicate with each other across species. The cats also “link” with each other using their whiskers. The main characters are the queen Beraal, the tomcats Katar and Hulo, and the old Siamese cat Miao, their leader. At the centre is Mara, a little orphaned kitten who is a powerful “sender”; she can send messages into the minds of all cats and other creatures. The wildings avoid “Big Feet” (humans) and domestic cats, but make an exception in the case of Mara. At the edge of their territory is an old “Shuttered House” populated by cruel feral cats who obey no laws. When the old owner dies, his heirs open up the house and the cats invade the outside world, killing aimlessly. Other creatures, led by Tooth, and Kirri, a mongoose, help the wildings in the battle with the evil feral cats. The ferals would have won but for Mara’s help – she projects an image of Ozzy (Ozymandias, the Royal Bengal Tiger of Delhi Zoo) and the ferals are unnerved when they see a cat much bigger then them with a fearsome roar – humans cannot see this projection, only the animals and birds do.
Kunal Mukherjee’s My Magical Palace is another significant first novel. With great sensitivity, it reveals the torment a homosexual faces in society. Rahul Chatterjee, living in twenty-first century San Francisco with his partner, keeps having nightmares. He is still interviewing girls sent by his mother for an arranged marriage as he is afraid to come out of the closet. The novel is structured as Rahul’s confession to his partner Andrew who threatens to walk out unless Rahul faces the truth. The year is 1973 and Rahul is a thirteen-year-old living in Hyderabad. His father is the Mint Master and the government has provided housing for them in an abandoned palace called Mint House. His father keeps pushing him to stand first in the class. The utter helplessness of children in the face of parental dictates is well brought out. Young Rahul loves to play with his sister Rani’s kitchen set. The child is terrified of not being found “normal”. Tormented by his classmates who are jealous because he always stands first, the innocent young boy struggles to come to terms with his growing sexual awareness. A class fellow is expelled from school just because he writes a love letter to another boy, and his parents take him to have electric shock therapy. Rahul writes a love letter to his matinee idol Rajesh Khanna. Though he takes care to destroy it, he is still haunted by the fear that he will be found out. The society of the time is guided by false notions of honour. Parents feel that they cannot hold up their head in society just because their daughter is found talking to a Muslim young man. The narrow-mindedness of people, their hatred of Muslims and homosexuals, is clearly depicted.
A large number of thrillers and detective stories, many of them first novels, appeared. In Manreet Sodhi Someshwar’s The Taj Conspiracy the protagonist, Mehrunisa Khosa, an art historian, uncovers a conspiracy to establish the Taj as a Shiva temple. She is the daughter of a Persian mother and a Sikh father, and identifies herself with the Taj, a hybrid product. Sodhi’s language captures the beauty of the Taj adequately. Madhulika Liddle’s novels with Muzaffar Jang as detective are set in the seventeenth century, during the reign of Shah Jahan, the builder of the Taj Mahal; Engraved in Stone published in 2012 is the third book in the series. Swati Kaushal, author of chicklit novels like A Piece of Cake (2005) and A Girl like Me (2008) has published detective fiction – Drop Dead is the first of a series of novels which has a woman, Niki Marwah, an attractive Superintendent of Police at Shimla, investigating a murder. The plot has many twists and turns and Kaushal provides many hints, yet the conclusion is not easy to guess. Rupali Rajopadhye Rotti’s The Valentine’s Day Clue has Raj and Sandy, “the Naik brothers” as detectives. Madhumita Bhattacharyya pays more attention to the love life of her detective, Reema Roy, in The Masala Murder. Her mother is a very credible character who wants Reema to “settle down” and tries hard to arrange her marriage. In Suparna Chatterjee’s The All Bengali Crime Detectives (2011), the mystery part is only one strand of narrative in a loving recreation of life in Golf Garden, an old locality of Calcutta. Retired Judge Akhil Banerjee solves the mystery of a stolen ring, which leads to the unmasking of a murderer. Kiran Manral’s The Reluctant Detective (2011), subtitled “Or how a housewife became a murder investigator between being a school-gate mom and her ladies lunches”, is the entertaining story of a thirty-five-year-old housewife. A woman she has seen when she goes jogging is murdered, and Kay decides to become a detective because she keeps seeing her ghost.
Poet and fiction writer Anita Nair, author of twelve books (novels include The Better Man, 2000; Ladies Coupé, 2001; and Lessons in Forgetting, 2010, reissued in the U.S. with the title The Lilac House, 2012) has Inspector Borei Gowda as detective in Cut like Wound. A young male prostitute is killed (burnt alive) and other murders take place in various areas of Bangalore. Inspector Gowda finds a pattern to the murders and traces the murderer in the face of official apathy. The novelist gives equal importance to her detective’s personal life, his problems with his wife and son and an old girlfriend from his college days. Shashi Deshpande’s Ships That Pass has elements of a detective story; the novella is based on a story which was originally conceived and written in 1980 as a crime story, as Deshpande informs us in the author’s note. The 136-page novella is about the growing up of Radhika, a young woman from a middle-class family who has completed her college education and does not know what to do next. She agrees to an arranged marriage because “it is best got out of the way before getting on with the business of life”. Her elder sister Tara is happily married to her childhood sweetheart Shaan; when Radhika visits them in response to Tara’s panic-stricken request, she finds that their relationship has broken down. When Tara dies because of an overdose of sleeping pills, they do not know whether it is suicide or murder.
Kunal Basu is the author of The Opium Clerk (2001), The Miniaturist (2003), Racists (2006) and a collection of stories, The Japanese Wife (2008). His fourth novel, The Yellow Emperor’s Cure, has vivid descriptions of life in Lisbon, Macao, and Peking. Dr. Antonio Henriques Maria is the best surgeon in Lisbon in 1898. When he discovers that his beloved father is dying of syphilis, he decides to go to China to find a cure. He stays as the guest of the invisible yet powerful dowager Empress, learning about the Chinese system of medicine from Dr. Xu, who sends his beautiful assistant Fumi to teach Maria, and he falls desperately in love with her. He has to cope with new food and new social mores and to learn Nei-Ching, the medical canon that teaches a doctor to diagnose a patient simply by listening to the pulse. Violence breaks out across China, and the Boxer rebellion separates the lovers. It is surprising that this powerful novel about culture clash in a historical setting was not shortlisted for literary prizes, unlike Narcopolis which appeared in four shortlists. Is it because Jeet Thayil led a much more colourful life than Kunal Basu, who teaches at Oxford?
Two remarkable collections of short stories appeared. Navtej Sarna’s Winter Evenings contains nineteen short stories written over more than two decades. Fourteen of them were first published in journals like London Magazine or broadcast on BBC World Service radio. A number of stories are about love and the loss of love. Some stories are based on his experiences as a member of the Indian Administrative Service. Anjum Hasan is the author of a collection of poems Street on the Hill (2006) and two novels, Lunatic in My Head (2007) and Neti, Neti (2009). The well-crafted stories in Difficult Pleasures have a wide variety of settings, from Shillong to Bangalore, though her novels were set predominantly in North-East India. Easterine Kire (Iralu), from Nagaland, is the first author in English to write about life in this north–east state of India. Her fourth novel, Bitter Wormwood is about the price ordinary people had to pay when the Indian government suppressed the Naga struggle for independence.
Two new novels are set in the Punjab. Rupa Bajwa’s Tell Me a Story (like her Sahitya Akademi Award-winning first novel The Sari Shop, 2004) is set in Amritsar, and reveals the daily struggle for survival of a poor family. The protagonist is Rani, a young girl working in a beauty parlour; her brother works in a textile mill, struggling to support his wife, his young son Bittu and his out-of-work father. Their house is flooded because of a burst water-pipe and human relationships sour when they find that the father has loaned his life’s savings to a friend’s son who runs away with the money. Bajwa’s unobtrusive language and attention to minute detail bring the setting to life. Amandeep Sandhu’s second novel, Roll of Honour, reveals how political events in 1984 affect a schoolboy’s life. Young Appu is in his last year in a Sainik school (government-sponsored military schools for boys, to train them to become army officers) when Indira Gandhi’s raid on the Golden Temple and the anti-Sikh riots following her assassination make him re-examine his position; many of his classmates become separatists. What could have been a sensitive story of divided loyalties ends up as an account of the brutality of the army school – seniors mercilessly exploit juniors, beating them up and sodomizing them, because they had also been brutalized by their seniors.
Tabish Khair’s fifth novel, How to Fight Islamist Terror from the Missionary Position, is set in Denmark, where the novelist himself teaches. The narrator is a Pakistani Muslim who is an atheist; he shares an apartment with Ravi, a flamboyant Indian research student who professes interest in Islam. Their landlord Karim Bhai, a hard-working cab driver, is a devout Muslim. The novel, which has elements of a love story and campus fiction, is memorable for its irreverent humour but it lacks the power of Khair’s third novel, Filming (2007). Other established writers to publish new work include Namita Gokhale, who has published a collection of short stories, The Habit of Love, and Ruskin Bond, whose new novella Maharani is a blend of fiction and memoir and compares unfavourably with his earlier work.
Works based on Indian mythology have proliferated. Ashok K. Banker has followed up his “Krishna Coriolis” series and retelling of the Ramayana with stories based on the Mahabharata. Poet and novelist Shiv K. Kumar has published a new prose version of the Mahabharata. Amish Tripathi asks, “What if Lord Shiva was not a mythical God, a figment of a rich imagination, but a person of flesh and blood?”. He blends historical fact and mythology with fiction in his bestselling Shiva trilogy (The Immortals of Meluha, 2010, The Secret of the Nagas, 2012, and The Oath of the Vayuputras, 2013) to present Shiva as a human being who attains mythical status because of his wisdom and bravery. Amruta Patil presents mythology in the form of a graphic novel in Adi Parva: Churning of the Ocean. The Ramayana presents Rama as an incarnation of Vishnu who has come to earth to kill the evil Ravana. Anand Neelakantan’s Asura: Tale of the Vanquished presents events from the point of view of Ravana’s subjects. Ashwin Sanghi has introduced elements from Hindu mythology into his thriller, The Krishna Key, the title referring to a powerful legacy left behind by Lord Krishna, who is assumed to be a historical character that lived 5,000 years ago. The central character, Saini, a professor of history, is suspected of the murder of three of his friends, all descendents of Krishna’s Yadava tribe. Every chapter begins with an incident from the life of Krishna, a strategy which may be useful for non-Indian readers.
Translations of modern Indian literature are being published by all the leading Indian publishing houses. There is a growing tendency to examine Indian English literature in the context of Bhasha literature. Two significant works of literary criticism demonstrate this approach: Inter-Sections: Essays on Indian Literatures, Translations and Popular Consciousness by Rana Nayarn and Theorising Resistance: Narratives in History and Politics by Jasbir Jain.
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Research Aids
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Divvaakar, S.V. Beaten by Bhagath! A Tale of Two Writers 193pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs125.
Faleiro, Jessica Afterlife: Ghost Stories from Goa 168pp Rupa (New Delhi) Pb Rs150.
Farooqi, Musharraf Ali and Michelle Farooqi Rabbit Trap: A 21st Century Fable 304pp Penguin Viking (New Delhi) Rs399.
Gajwani, Ratan Doctors and Devils 103pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs95 [short stories].
Gambhir, Rajnish A Passion beyond Extremes 460pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs299.
Ghose, Bhaskar The Teller of Tales 272pp Penguin (New Delhi) Rs299.
Ghosh, Lopa Revolt of the Fish Eaters 272pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs299.
Gigoo, Siddhartha The Garden of Solitude 260pp Rupa Rs195 [2011].
Gill, Aruna The Indus Intercept 331pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs299.
Gokhale, Namita The Habit of Love 192pp Penguin (New Delhi) Rs250 [short stories].
Goswami, Tara The Bogoli Phut Days: Pitki’s Adventures in Assam 92pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs299 [illustrated, for children].
Govinden, Niven Black Bread White Beer 192pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Rs350.
Gulia, Urvashi My Way Is the Highway 280pp Penguin Metro Reads (New Delhi) Rs150.
Hasan, Anjum Difficult Pleasures 247pp Penguin Viking (New Delhi) Rs399 [short stories].
Hassan, Taj The Inexplicable Unhappiness of Ramu Hajjam 240pp Hachette India (Gurgaon) Pb Rs295.
Hebbar, Nistula Kiss and Tell 200pp Penguin Metro Reads (New Delhi) Rs150.
Iyengar, Karthik Horn OK Please – HOPping to Conclusions 267pp Rupa (New Delhi) Pb Rs100.
Iyer, Bharatwaj Letters from a Brothel 74 pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs95.
Iyer, Shriram Wings of Silence244pp Grey Oak (Bangalore) Pb Rs199.
Jagannathan, Navneet Tamasha in Bandargaon 324pp Tranquebar Press (Chennai) Pb Rs295.
Jesia, Avan Tower 412pp Penguin (New Delhi) Rs399.
Jha, Piyush Mumbaistan 242pp Rupa (New Delhi) Pb Rs195.
Jindal, Shreya Prabhu Another Chance at Life 224pp Penguin Metro Reads (New Delhi) Rs199.
Jose, Ebbin Afflictions of Love 230pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs195.
Joseph, Anjali Another Country 304pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs499.
Joseph, Manu The Illicit Happiness of Other People 352pp Fourth Estate, an imprint of HarperCollins (New Delhi) Rs499.
Joseph, Vinod When the Snow Melts 202pp Amaryllis (New Delhi) Pb Rs195.
Kaimal, Vishnu Love Unhitched 152pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs125.
Kankanala, Kalyan C. Road Humps and Sidewalks: The Path Less Travelled 178pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs125.
Kapoor, Pradeep Fosla: Frustrated One Sided Lovers’ Association 236pp Rupa (New Delhi) Pb Rs175
Kaushal, Swati Drop Dead 321pp Hachette India (Gurgaon) Rs250.
Keerthi, Lekha Nicole Blue and Two Strangers in a Train 173pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs125.
Khair, Tabish How to Fight Islamist Terror from the Missionary Position 200pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Rs450.
— The Thing about Thugs 288pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs299 [first pub 2010].
Khan, Aminuddin Reflections of an Uncommon Man 201pp Rupa (New Delhi) Rs195 [2011].
Khan, Niyaz Ahmed Destiny and Drugs 229pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs195.
Khan, Sami Ahmad Red Jihad: Battle for South Asia 266pp Rupa (New Delhi) Pb Rs295.
Khatri, Shailesh Five Soul-Searching Short Stories 116pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs95.
Kire, Easterine Bitter Wormwood 270pp Zubaan Books Pb Rs295.
Komarraju, Sharath Banquet on the Dead 265pp Westland (Chennai) Pb Rs250.
Kothari, Falguni It’s Your Move, Wordfreak! 292pp Rupa (New Delhi) Pb s250.
Kumar, Anu It Takes a Murder 288pp Hachette India (Gurgaon) Pb Rs350.
Kumar, Atul Inside the Boundary Lines 205pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs195.
Kumar, Mukul Onsite Opportunities: Tryst of a Software Engineer with the World 170pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs95.
Kumar, N. Sampath Bindaas Zero Bollywood Hero 256pp Rupa (New Delhi) Pb Rs195.
Kumar, Rajiv Navarasa by Lotus 164pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs125 [short stories].
Kumar, Sheila Kith and Kin 248pp Rupa (New Delhi) Pb Rs250.
Kumar, Shivam P. and Shashwat P. Kumar Quolowardia 92pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs95.
Kumar, Suravi Sharma Voices in the Valley Rupa (New Delhi) Pb Rs295.
Kumar, Vinod S. Tea-20: Perfect Companion for Your Teatime 126pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs125 [short stories].
Kunzru, Hari Gods without Men 384pp Hamish Hamilton (London) £17.99.
Lal, Ranjit Taklu and Shroom 240pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs250.
Lal, Yashodhara Just Married, Please Excuse 264pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs199.
Lalwani, Nikita The Village 256pp Penguin Viking (New Delhi) 256pp Rs399.
Liddle, Madhulika Engraved in Stone 320pp Hachette India (Gurgaon) Pb Rs395
Lukose, Vijaya Absolutely Nuts 246pp Rupa (New Delhi) Pb Rs195.
Madhavan, Meenakshi Reddy Cold Feet 248pp Penguin (New Delhi) Rs250.
Manickam, Titus When Monday Was Over 238pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs225.
Mansi, Soni The Inevitable Bond 226pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs150.
Mathur, Shreya But Ira Said 208pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs250.
Mehrotra, Tulika Delhi Stopover 408pp Penguin Metro Reads (New Delhi) Rs50.
Mehta, Komal Nick of Time 248pp Penguin Metro Reads (New Delhi) Rs150.
Menon, Rajiv G. Thundergod: The Ascendance of Indra 392pp Westland (Chennai) Rs295.
Mirza, Saeed Akhtar The Monk, the Moor and Moses Ben Jalloun 256pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Rs450.
Mishra, Alok Being in Love. . .Bliss or Curse 129 pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs95.
Misquita, Douglas Haunted 372pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs350 [2011].
— Secret of the Scribe 332pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs245.
Mithal, Ankur What Happens in Office, Stays in Office 196pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb 195.
Mitra, Monabi F.I.R. 276pp Penguin Metro Reads (New Delhi) Rs199.
Mittal, Parul A. Arranged Love 256pp Penguin Metro Reads (New Delhi) Rs150.
Mody, Jugal Toke 224pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs160.
Mohan, Peggy The Youngest Suspect 242pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs299.
Mohanty, Smruti The Engineering Train 207pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs145.
Mukherjee, Kunal My Magical Palace 374pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs399.
Mukherjee, Sharmila The Green Rose 224pp Penguin (New Delhi) Rs250.
Mulimani, Mallikarjun B. Operation Epiphany – God’s Journey on Earth 284pp Writers Workshop (Kolkata) Rs400.
Mullick, Sumit The Unkindest Cut 404pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs250.
Murty, Sudha The Day I Stopped Drinking Milk: Life Stories from Here and There 212pp Penguin (New Delhi) Rs199.
Nabar, Satyen Curiosity Kills the Katha 243pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs125.
Nagarkar, Kiran The Extras 488pp Fourth Estate, an imprint of HarperCollins (New Delhi) Rs599.
Naidu, Vayu Sita’s Ascent 200pp Penguin (New Delhi) Rs299.
Nair, Anita Cut like Wound 358pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs299.
Narayan, Lakshmi Bonsai Kitten 296 pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs195.
Narayan, Siddharth Naughty Men 264pp Penguin Metro Reads (New Delhi) Rs199.
Nath, Biman The Tattooed Fakir 280pp Pan (New Delhi) Pb Rs299.
Neelakantan, Anand Asura: Tale of the Vanquished — The Story of Ravana and His People 498pp Leadstart (Membai) Pb Rs250.
Nuggehalli, Badrinath Clear Line of Fire 232pp Rupa (New Delhi) Pb Rs195.
Pal, Anuvab Chaos Theory 360pp Picador (New Delhi) Hb Rs499 Pb Rs305.
Parajuly, Prajwal The Gurkha’s Daughter 272pp Quercus (London) Rs499 [short stories].
Parameswaran, Rajesh I Am an Executioner: Love Stories 272pp Knopf (New York) $24.95
Parulekar, Supriya The Gangster’s Muse 136pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs95.
Patel, Kamini The Morning After: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun 224pp Penguin Metro Reads (New Delhi) Rs199.
Pathak, Chandan Kumar Footprints 103pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs100.
Patil, Amruta Adi Parva: Churning of the Ocean 276pp illustrated HarperCollins (New Delhi) Rs799.
Patri, Golak Salvage of Innocence 207pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs175.
Pendyala, Aditya S. Sorry Secrets 262pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs195 [short stories].
Pereira, Oswald The Revenge of the Naked Princess: A Dark Tale on Forced Conversions 224pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Rs125.
Perkins, Mitali Bamboo People: A Novel 280pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs250.
Pinto, Jerry Em and the Big Hoom 235pp Aleph Book Company (New Delhi) Rs495.
Premji, Yasmeen Days of Gold and Sepia 419pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Rs399.
Puri, Neel Kamal Remember to Forget 187pp Rupa (New Delhi) Pb Rs295.
Purushotham, Priyamvada N. The Purple Line 217pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs250.
Raajgopal, Rajshri Boomerang 226pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs145.
Raj, M.C. Operation Liquidus 350pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb 395.
Rajasekaran, Sindhu Kaleidoscopic Reflections 364pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs195.
Raman, Aroon The Shadow Throne 332pp Pan Macmillan (Gurgaon) Pb Rs250
Rathi, Ankit Sorry Dad, I Ain’t Scoring the Goal 196pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs145.
Ratna, Kalpish Once upon a Hill 248pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Rs499.
Ravi, K.R. Ismile Please 169pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs95.
Ray, Arnab The Mine 282pp Westland (Chennai) Pb Rs195 [2011].
RKSJ (Rohit Kumar Singh Jadon) A Short Affair Called Life 195pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs145.
Rotti, Rupali Rajopadhye The Valentine’s Day Clue 237pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs195.
Roy, Himadri Travails of Entrapment 426pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs345.
Roy, Nilanjana The Wildings illus Prabha Mallya 312pp Aleph Book Company (New Delhi) Rs595.
Saklani, Alka Dimri 45 Days in a Cancer Hospital 298pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs195.
Salgaokar, Shakti Imperfect Mr Right 246pp Popular Prakashan (Mumbai) Pb Rs175.
Salman, Ayesha Blue Dust: A Novel 216pp IndiaInk (New Delhi) Pb Rs250.
Sandhu, Amandeep Roll of Honour 242pp Rupa (New Delhi) Pb Rs275.
Sanghi, Ashwin The Krishna Key 475pp Westland (Chennai) Pb Rs250.
Sanjeti, Apurva and Sandeep Jain Status Updated 153pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs95.
Sara, Tasneem Definitions of Love 107pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs95.
Sarkar, Niladri Manipulations 136pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs125
Sarna, Navtej Winter Evenings: Stories 133pp Rupa (New Delhi) Rs350.
Sarna, Satyajit The Angel’s Share 230pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs250.
Saxena, Anurag Vitrashna 86pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs95.
Sebastian, Joseph The Peacenik Swap 183pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs195.
Sen, Kunal Left from Dhakeshwari 281pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs195.
Sen, Srikumar The Skinning Tree 222pp Picador India (New Delhi) Rs499.
Sengupta, Saswati The Song Seekers 348pp Zubaan Books (New Delhi) Rs395.
Shams, Asbah In a Heartbeat 232pp Penguin Metro Reads (New Delhi) Rs199.
Shanker, M.V. Ravi Collision of Dimensions 534pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs345.
Sharma, Lakshmi Raj The Tailor’s Needle 336pp Penguin (New Delhi) Rs350.
Shenoy, Preeti Life Is What You Make It 209pp Srishti (New Delhi) pb Rs100 [2011]
— The Secret Wish List 270pp Westland (Chennai) Pb Rs175.
Singh, Krishan Partap The War Ministry 430pp Hachette (Gurgaon) Pb Rs350 [volume 3 of the Raisina Series].
Sinha, Tuhin A. The Edge of Desire 324pp Hachette India (Gurgaon) Pb Rs150.
Solanki, Vikram and Mukesh Modi Jungle Republic and a Fable of Now 153pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs95.
Someshwar, Manreet Sodhi The Taj Conspiracy 402pp Westland (Chennai) Pb Rs250.
Sreelatha An Eternal Romantic 170pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs145.
Sriram, Maya Sharma Bitch Goddess for Dummies 260pp Rupa (New Delhi) Pb Rs195.
Srivastava, Ankita The Pink Scarecrow 174pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs175.
Subramanian, Nirupama Intermission 256pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs250.
Subramanian, Ravi The Bankster 358pp Rupa (New Delhi) Rs350.
Sundaresan, Indu The Feast of Roses 472pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs399 [first pub 2003].
— The Twentieth Wife 384pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs399 [first pub 2002]
Swaminathan, Kalpana I Never Knew It Was You 288pp Penguin (New Delhi) Rs299.
Thayil, Jeet Narcopolis 292pp Faber (London) Special Indian price Rs499.
Thomas, Radha Men on My Mind 270pp Rupa (New Delhi) Pb Rs195.
Thoppil, Jayaraj V. Alcohol 275pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs245.
Tirumurti, T.S. Chennaivaasi 270pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs299.s
Tripathi, Amish The Secret of the Nagas 396pp Westland (Chennai) Pb Rs295 (Vol 2 of the Shiva Trilogy).
Tuvij, Kalicharan Kalicharan’s Veda 269pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs195.
Vadukut, Sidin Who Let the Dork Out? 256pp Penguin (New Delhi) Rs250.
Varma, Pavan K. When Loss Is Gain 288pp Rupa (New Delhi) Rs395.
Vegas, Roy Callaghan The Steel Lock 234pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs195.
Verma, Kinshuk Of Pebbles & Pearls. . .Life and Its Curls illustrated 158pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs125 [short stories and poems].
Verma, Rituraj Love, Peace & Happiness: What More Can You Want? 223pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs145 [short stories].
Viegas, Savia Abha Nama 128pp illustrated Saxtti Foundation (Carmona, Goa) Rs250.
— Eddi & Diddi 72pp illustrated Saxtti Foundation (Carmona, Goa) Rs250.
Visvanathan, Susan Nelycinda and Other Stories 232pp Roli Books (New Delhi) Pb Rs295.
Vohra, Rishi Once upon the Tracks of Mumbai 266pp Jaico Books (New Delhi) Pb Rs175.
Zaidi, Annie Love Stories # 1 to 14 314pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs350.
Anthologies
The Ambassadors’ Club: The Indian Diplomat at Large ed Krishna V. Rajan 344pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Rs599 [memoirs, experiences of various Indian diplomats].
At University: An Anthology of Selected Poems and Short Stories ed Chitta Kalyani 128pp Leadstart (Mumbai) Pb Rs95.
Barbed Wire: Borders and Partitions in South Asia ed Jayita Sengupta 316pp Routledge India (New Delhi) £70.00; Rs950 [short stories, poems, articles, news reports and memoirs].
Breaking the Bow: Speculative Fiction Inspired by the Ramayana eds Anil Menon and Vandana Singh 338pp Zubaan Books (New Delhi) Pb Rs395.
Civil Lines 6: New Writing from India eds Mukul Kesavan, Kai Friese, and Achal Prabhala 248pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs350 [2011].
The Greatest Show on Earth: Writings on Bollywood ed Jerry Pinto 472pp Penguin (New Delhi) Rs499 [2011].
The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry ed Sudeep Sen 542pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Rs599.
Making News, Breaking News, Her Own Way eds Latika Padgaonkar and Shubha Singh 330pp Tranquebar (Chennai) Rs250 [stories by Winners of the Chameli Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Women Mediapersons].
Mumbai Noir ed Altaf Tyrewala 288pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs350.
Seven Leaves, One Autumn: Poems by Seven Contemporary Poets eds Sukrita Paul Kumar and Savita Singh 160pp Rajkamal English (New Delhi) Rs195 [seven women poets, Zohra Saed from Afghanistan, Julie Boden from Britain, Clara Janes from Spain, Kishwar Naheed from Pakistan, Ute Margaret Saine from USA, and the two editors from India, translations as well as poems written originally in English].
She Writes: A Collection of Short Stories 208pp Random House (New Delhi) Rs299 [12 winners of the MSN-Random House India “Write a Story” Contest]
These My Words: The Penguin Book of Indian Poetry eds Eunice de Souza and Melanie Silgardo 472pp Penguin (New Delhi) Rs499.
Urban Shots: Bright Lights ed Paritosh Uttam 206pp Grey Oak Publishers (Bangalore) Pb Rs199.
Urban Shots: Crossroads ed Ahmed Faiyaz 218pp Grey Oak Publishers (Bangalore) Pb Rs199 [2011].
Translations
Dattani, Mahesh Akhri Faisla Urdu trans of Final Solutions by A.R.Manzar and Tutun Mukherjee Takhleeqkar Publishers (Delhi)
Banker, Ashok K. The Forest of Stories xii+350pp Westland (Chennai) Pb Rs295 [stories from the Mahabharata].
— Lord of Mathura 283pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs250.
— Rage of Jarasandha 301pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs250 [Book 4 and Book 5 of “Krishna Coriolis Series”].
— Sons of Sita 362pp Wisdom Tree (New Delhi) Rs345 [Book 8, the concluding book of the Ramayana Series].
The Mahabharata retold from Sanskrit by Shiv K. Kumar 376pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs399.
Mund, Subhendu Ma Nishada and Other Poems trans from Oriya by Ganeswar Mishra, Prasenjit Mund and the poet vi+86pp Pagemaker Publication (Bhubaneswar) Rs 95.
Letters, Biography and Autobiography
Bond, Ruskin The Memoirs 776pp Penguin (New Delhi) Rs499 [Classic Ruskin Bond Volume 2 contains Rain in the Mountains, Scenes from a Writer’s Life, The Lamp Is Lit, Landour Days, and Notes from a Small Room].
Naidu, Leela and Jerry Pinto Leela: A Patchwork Life 200pp with 16pp illus Penguin (New Delhi) Rs250.
Rajagopalachari, C. My Dear Bapu: Letters from C. Rajagopalachari to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Devdas Gandhi and Gopalakrishna Gandhi ed Gopalakrishna Gandhi 352pp Viking Penguin (New Delhi) Rs599.
Rao, Raja Letters: Raja Rao and Kathleen Raine comp and ed C.N.Srinath and Susan Raja Rao 100pp Dhvanyaloka Publication (Mysore) Pb Rs200.
Rushdie, Salman Joseph Anton: A Memoir 633pp Jonathan Cape (London) £25.00; special Indian price Rs799.
Sahgal, Nayantara Indira Gandhi: Tryst with Power 424p Penguin (New Delhi) Rs399.
Segal, Kiran Zohra Segal “Fatty” 167pp Niyogi Books (New Delhi) Rs1250.
Criticism
General Studies
The Big Book Shelf Sunil Sethi in conversation with 30 famous authors 240pp Penguin (New Delhi) Rs350 [2011].
“A Brief Overview on Feminism in India” Antonio Navarro-Tejero India in the World pp257–264 [see Criticism, General Studies].
“Bollywood and South Asian Diasporic Films in the U.K.: Gurinder Chadha’s Female Road Movie” Esperanza Santos Moya India in the World pp265–276 [see Criticism, General Studies].
“Canon: The Role of the Booker” Yakaiah Kathy Littcrit 38 (1) pp31–37.
Changing Faces of New Woman Indian Writing in English A.A. Khan 268pp Adhyayan Publishers & Distributors (New Delhi) Rs 795.
“Choosing a Linguistic Medium” Prema Nandakumar The Literary Criterion Diamond Jubilee Year Special Issue pp74–77.
Clearing a Space: Reflections on India, Literature and Culture Amit Chaudhuri 336pp Penguin (New Delhi) Rs399 [first pub 2008].
Critical Essays on Post-Colonial Literature Bijay Kumar Das 248pp Atlantic (New Delhi) Hb Rs595; Pb Rs400 [revised and extended 3rd edition].
Cultural Narratives: Hybridity and Other Spaces ed Jasbir Jain vii+230pp Rawat Publications (Jaipur) Rs650.
Culture, Nature and Literature Usha Bande 220pp Rawat Publications (Jaipur) Rs595.
Ecological Criticism for Our Times: Literature, Nature and Critical Enquiry eds Murali Sivaramakrishnan and Ujjwal Jana viii+298pp Authorspress (New Delhi) Rs750 [2011].
“English in India: A Reactionary Essay” Mohan Ramanan The Literary Criterion Diamond Jubilee Year Special Issue pp78–85.
“From Raj to Swaraj” Perspectives on Indian English Literature Pralay Kumar Deb The Critical Endeavour 18 pp139–148.
“Gender, Historiography and Translation” Tutun Mukherjee Re-Engendering Translation: Transcultural Practice, Gender/Sexuality and the Politics of Alterity ed Christopher Larkosh pp127–143.
Gender and Culture in Works of Select Women Novelists of Indian Sub-Continent Lalima Chakraverty 136pp Atlantic (New Delhi) Rs450.
India in the World eds Cristina M. Gamez-Fernandez and Antonia Navarro-Tejero 305pp Cambridge Scholars Publishing (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK) £44.99 [2011].
Indian Drama in English: Some Perspectives ed Abha Shukla Kaushik 352pp Atlantic (New Delhi) Rs695.
“‘Indias in Mind’: The Literary Recovery of Absent India” Juan Ignacio Oliva India in the World pp87–100 [see this section].
Inter-Sections: Essays on Indian Literatures, Translations and Popular Consciousness Rana Nayar 304pp Orient Blackswan (Hyderabad) Pb Rs445.
Making India: Colonialism, National Culture, and the Afterlife of Indian English Authority Makarand R. Paranjape xiii+265pp Springer (New York) $129.00.
“The Making of Global Success: Roy and Lahiri’s Authentic Indian Fictions” Anuradha Marwah South Asian Review 33 (2) pp57–79.
The Partitions of Memory: The Afterlife of the Division of India Suvir Kaul 328pp Permanent Black (New Delhi) Pb Rs350.
“Perspectives on post-colonial literatures (pedestrians at post-colonial traffic jam)” M. Dasan Littcrit 38(1) pp46–55 [The P.K.Rajan Memorial Lecture at Kerala University, 2012].
“Redefinition of the Concept ‘Anglo-Indian’ in Contemporary Narrative” Laura Peco González India in the World pp101–108 [see this section].
Re-Engendering Translation: Transcultural Practice, Gender/Sexuality and the Politics of Alterity ed Christopher Larkosh 151pp St Jerome’s Press (London & New York) £22.50.
“Reflections on the Application of Indian Poetics” M.S. Khushwaha The Critical Endeavour 18 pp222–229.
Theorising Resistance: Narratives in History and Politics Jasbir Jain 224pp Rawat Publications (Jaipur) Rs625.
“Translation and the Idea of Indian Literature” K. Satchidanandan The Critical Endeavour 18 pp54–70.
“Translation as Creative Literature” Prema Nandakumar The Critical Endeavour 18 pp71–80.
Various Cultures Variant Readings: Essays in Honour of Prof. Jameela Begum eds B. Hariharan, P.P. Ajayakumar, Achamma Alex, Vijayalekshmi G. and Cherian John, 2 Vols 517pp Creative Books (New Delhi) Rs1600 for 2 vols.
What Are You Reading? The World Market and Indian Literary Production Pavithra Narayanan 179pp Routledge India (New Delhi) £70.00; Rs950.
Women’s Voice in Indian Fiction in English Vijay Kumar Roy 350pp Adhyayan Publishers & Distributors (New Delhi) Rs550.
Studies on Individual Writers
Alexander, Meena “Meena Alexander: A Poetic Evolution from Sum Total of the Past” Sanjay Solanki The Quest 26 (1) pp118–123.
Ali, Agha Shahid “A Contemporary Encrypted Narrative of Agha Shahid Ali” Sonjoy Dutta-Roy Kavya Bharati 24 p146–153.
— “Nostalgia and Displacement: A Study of Agha Shahid Ali’s The Half-Inch Himalayas” Fatima Noori Littcrit 38 (1) pp38–45.
Anand, Mulk Raj “Narratology: Narrative Technique in Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable” Balwan Singh The Quest 26 (1) pp41–46.
Aravind, Nirmala “The Specificities of Milieu in Nirmala Aravind’s A Video, a Fridge and a Bride” S. Devika Littcrit 38 (1) pp12–16.
Badrinath, Tulsi “Unravelling the Web of Karma in Fictional Terms: A Look at Tulsi Badrinath’s Man of a Thousand Chances” Ragini Ramachandra The Literary Criterion Diamond Jubilee Year Special Issue pp99–108.
Bhattacharya, Rahul “Exploring Diasporic Frontiers: Rahul Bhattacharya’s The Sly Company of People Who Care” Tutun Mukherjee Various Cultures Variant Readings: Essays in Honour of Prof. Jameela Begum eds B. Hariharan et al. pp127–140.
Bond, Ruskin Ruskin Bond: A Critical Evaluation R. Jauhari, M.P. Sinha, and Nigam J. Dave 192pp Atlantic (New Delhi) Rs595.
Das, Kamala “Revisiting the Sixties, Revisiting Summer in Calcutta” Devindra Kohli The Literary Criterion Diamond Jubilee Year Special Issue pp94–98.
Dattani, Mahesh Mahesh Dattani’s Plays: An Anthology of Recent Criticism ed Tutun Mukherjee 280pp Pencraft International (Delhi) Rs750.
— “Tradition: Mute Witness to Clash of Attitudes in Dance like a Man” G. Fatima Edwin The Quest 26 (1) pp94–98.
Desai, Anita “‘She had been certain the river would sustain her’: Modernist Aestheticism in Anita Desai’s Fiction” Maria J. Lopez India in the World pp173–182 [see Criticism, General Studies].
Desai, Kiran “National Identity and Cultural Representation in The Inheritance of Loss” Sonali Das Journal of Indian Writing in English 40 (1) pp36–46.
— “Reconfiguring the Nation and Culture in the Novels of Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai” Sonali Das The Critical Endeavour18 pp245–267.
Deshpande, Shashi “Sexual/Textual Interplay in Shashi Deshpande’s ‘The Intrusion’” T. Sarada Littrit 38 (1) pp74–81.
Devy, G.N. “G.N. Devy in Conversation with Bijay Kumar Das” The Critical Endeavour 18 pp307–317.
Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee “Gender and Postcoloniality in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Palace of Illusions” Ashalata Kulkarni The Quest 26 (1) pp31–36.
Ezekiel, Nissim “Jewish Identity in the Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel” Usha Kishore Kavya Bharati 24 pp109–134.
— “T.S. Eliot and Nissim Ezekiel: The Making of the Poetic Canon” Bijay Kumar Das The Critical Endeavour 18 pp286–296.
Gandhi, M.K. “Moral and Political Thought in Hind Swaraj” Mohan Ramanan The Critical Endeavour 18 pp127–138.
Ghose, Aurobindo “Aurobindo’s Savitri: A Narrative of Mystic Consciousness” Renu Josan The Quest 26 (2) pp92–98.
Ghose, Sudhin N. “‘Things of Stylized Beauty’: The Novels of Sudhin N. Ghose and the Fragments of an Indian Tradition” Sayan Chattopadhyay ARIEL: A Review Of International English Literature 43 (3) pp7–33.
Ghosh, Amitav “Amitav Ghosh’s ‘Imaginary Homelands’: The Question of Identity in The Shadow Lines” María Elena Martos Hueso India in the World pp191–202 [see Criticism, General Studies].
— “Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines: A Study in Displacement” Partha Sarathi Mandal The Quest 26 (2) pp54–60.
— “Collage of Histories: A Study of The Glass Palace” Nilofer Shakir The Quest 26 (2) pp61–68.
— “Deconstructing Magical Realism: An Appreciation of Amitav Ghosh’s The Circle of Reason” Shalini Saxena The Quest 26 (2) pp23–32.
— “Differend and Ethics of the Other in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide” Ph. Sanamacha Sharma The Quest 26 (2) pp1–11.
— “Historiographic Metafiction as a Pattern: A Study of Amitav Ghosh’s In an Antique Land” M. Saji The Quest 26 (2) pp69–78.
— “Historiographic Metafiction in Amitav Ghosh’s River of Smoke” Swati Kumari The Quest 26 (2) pp79–86.
— “Morichjhapi: A Historiographic Metafiction in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide” Swarnabharati The Quest 26 (2) pp42–53.
— “Subversive Meta-narratives of Postmodern Historiography in Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines” Ashalata Kulkarni The Quest 26 (2) pp12–22.
— “The Politics of Difference: Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines” Sanjay Solanki The Quest 26 (2) pp33–41.
Hariharan, Githa “Psychology of Fundamentalism in Githa Hariharan’s In Times of Siege” Gangeshwar Rai The Critical Endeavour 18 pp184–194.
Hosain, Attia “Partition: A Portrayal of Wounded Psyche in Attia Hosain’s Sunlight on a Broken Column” Anju Bala Agrawal The Quest 26 (1) pp99–104.
Joshi, Arun “ The Lure of Tribal Ethnicity: Arun Joshi’s The Strange Case of Billy Biswas” Sonia Singh Kushwah and A. S. Kushwah Indian Journal of World Literature and Culture 8 pp60-68.
Joy, T.R. “A Fellow Poet’s Perspective of T.R. Joy’s Brooding in a Wound” Marilyn Noronha Kavya Bharati 24 pp154–162.
Kapur, Manju “Framing Interpersonal Violence in A Married Woman” Olga Blancó-Carrion India in the World pp143–156 [see Criticism, General Studies].
— “Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters and the Deconstruction of Traditional Binary Oppositions” Javier Martín Párraga India in the World pp183–190 [see Criticism, General Studies].
Karnad, Girish “Girish Karnad’s The Dreams of Tipu Sultan: A Tragedy of Martyrdom” Benoy Kumar Banerjee The Critical Endeavour 18 pp157–164.
— “Rediscovering Padmini: Girish Karnad’s Hayavadana” Nilambara Banerjee The Quest 26 (1) pp75–79.
— The Plays of Girish Karnad: A Study in Myths and Gender Abhishek Kosta 264pp Atlantic (New Delhi) Rs695.
— “The Social Code and the Repression of Desires: A Psychoanalytic Study of Girish Karnad’s A Heap of Broken Images” Shayantani Banerjee The Quest 26 (1) pp87–93.
Lahiri, Jhumpa “Identity in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake” Cristina M. Gámez-Fernández India in the World pp157–162 [see Criticism, General Studies].
— “Jhumpa Lahiri’s Treatment of Place: A Close Reading of the First and Last Chapter of The Namesake” Ipsita Nayak The Critical Endeavour 18 pp240–244.
Lal, P. “P.Lal: The Man with the Lamp” Chinmoy Guha Indian Literature 267 pp31-35.
Mahapatra, Jayanta “It was a kind of hunger that words could fill” Interview by Nandini Sahu The Quest 26 (2) pp105–109.
Mukherjee, Bharati “Situating Subalterns in Bharati Mukherjee’s Selected Works” Swati Vatsa The Quest 26 (1) pp26–30.
— “Myth in the Novels of Bharati Mukherjee” S.M. Nandini The Quest 26(1) pp110–117.
Narasimhaiah, C.D. “In Memoriam: Professor C.D. Narasimhaiah” S. Laxmana Murthy The Literary Criterion Diamond Jubilee Year Special Issue pp109–112.
— “The Centripetal/ The Centrifugal Force in C.D. Narasimhaiah’s Criticism” Bijay Kumar Das The Literary Criterion Diamond Jubilee Year Special Issue pp86–93
Narayan, R.K. A Study in Narrative Technique Nitynanda Pattanayak 390pp Adhyayan Publishers & Distributors (New Delhi) Rs795.
— “The Search for Female Identity in R.K. Narayan’s The Dark Room” Emma Garcí Sanz India in the World pp163–172 [see Criticism, General Studies].
Nehru, Jawaharlal “History as Literature: The Writings of Jawaharlal Nehru” C.N. Srinath The Critical Endeavour 18 pp301–306.
Padhi, Bibhu “Bibhu Padhi Interviewed” Jaydeep Sarangi Kavya Bharati 24 pp193–201.
Patel, Gieve “And Then It Is Done: An Ecocritical Reading of Gieve Patel’s Poem ‘On Killing a Tree’” Bibhudutt Dash The Quest 26 (1) p105–109.
Ramanujan, A.K. “Counting ‘Trees in an Orange’: Reading A.K. Ramanujan’s Posthumous Poems” Bijay Kumar Das Journal of Indian Writing in English 40 (1) pp27–34.
Rao, Raja “Life is made for woman – man is a stranger to this earth”: Recognising Resistance and the Feminine Sensibility in Raja Rao” Ranu Uniyal Indian Literature 267 pp196-206.
Roy, Arundhati “An Eco-Critical Reading of Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss” Seema Rana and Anup Beniwal The Quest 26 (1) pp68–74.
— “‘City and Non-City’: Political Issues in In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones” Joel Kuortti India in the World pp247–264 [see Criticism, General Studies].
— “Reconfiguring the Nation and Culture in the Novels of Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai” Sonali Das The Critical Endeavour18 pp245–267.
Rushdie, Salman “A Paradise Lost: Kashmir as a Motif in Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown” Maurice O’Connor India in the World pp211–222 [see Criticism, General Studies].
— “Orpheus and Eurydice as Indian Rock-and-Roll Superstars: Salman Rushdie’s The Ground beneath Her Feet” Ana Christina Mendes India in the World pp203–210 [see Criticism, General Studies].
— Salman Rushdie’s Cities: Reconfigurational Politics and the Contemporary Urban Imagination Vassilena Parashkevova 232pp Continuum Studies in the City (London) Hb £59.99.
Sahgal, Nayantara “The Ideological Overlaps of the Saidian and the Sahgalian Thought” Maninder Pal Kaur Sidhu Indian Literature 267 pp207–219.
Sorabji, Cornelia “Denial of Death: Cornelia Sorabji’s ‘A Living Sacrifice: Ganges Valley, 1828’” Santoshi Bhawani Mishra Littcrit 38 (1) pp25–30.
Non-fiction
Chandra, Abhijit Bouquet of Life 72pp Writers Workshop (Kolkata) Rs100 [28 “middles”, 2011].
Daniels-Ramanujan, Molly A. Under a Green Shade: Epoch Times Biographies 210pp Writers Workshop (Kolkata) Rs300.
Das, Gurcharan India Grows at Night: A Liberal Case for a Strong State 307pp Penguin Viking (New Delhi) Rs599.
Dehlvi, Sadia The Sufi Courtyard: Dargahs of Delhi 272pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs699.
Lenin, Janaki My Husband & Other Animals 282pp Westland (Chennai) Pb Rs250.
Mehra, Amit Kashmir foreword by Ranjit Hoskote 144pp Penguin Studio (New Delhi) Rs3499 [book of photographs].
Mehrotra, Palash Krishna The Butterfly Generation: A Personal Journey into the Passions and Follies of India’s Technicolour Youth 272pp Rupa (New Delhi) Rs450.
Narayan, Shoba Return to India: A Memoir 269pp Rupa (New Delhi) Rs395.
Paranjape, Makarand Acts of Faith: Journeys to Sacred India 229pp Hay House (New Delhi) Rs299.
Ramachandra, Ragini Some Dream Destinations photographs by S. Ramachandra 91pp Dhvanyaloka Publications (Mysore) Rs1200.
Sengupta, Hindol The Liberals 336pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs350.
Sethi, Aman A Free Man: A True Story of Life and Death in Delhi 230pp W.W. Norton (New York) $24.95; Random House India (New Delhi) Pb Rs250.
Sethi, Aman A Free Man: A True Story of Life and Death in Delhi 230pp Random House India (Noida) Rs399 [2011]; W.W. Norton (New York) $24.95; Random House India (New Delhi) Pb Rs250.
Shah, Sudha The King in Exile: The Fall of the Royal Family of Burma 480pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Rs799.
Sharma, Ruchir Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles x+292pp Norton (New York); Allen Lane, an Imprint of Penguin Books (New Delhi) Hb Rs600 Pb Rs400.
Sharma, Ruchir Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles x+292pp Norton (New York) Hd Rs600 336pp Pb Rs400.
Tharoor, Shashi Pax Indica: India and the World of the 21st Century 449pp Allen Lane, an Imprint of Penguin Books (New Delhi) Rs799.
Veda, Gunjan and Syeda Saiyidain Hameed Beautiful Country: Stories from Another India 402pp HarperCollins (New Delhi) Pb Rs399.
Journals
Indian Journal of World Literature and Culture ed Subhendu Mund. ‘Prabhamayee’ VI-M-37 Sailashree Vihar, Bhubaneswar 751021. e-mail:
Indian Literature ed Ankur Betagiri. Sahitya Akademi, Rabindra Bhavan, 35, Ferozeshah Road, New Delhi 110001. Annual sub Rs250; six times a year.
Journal of Indian Writing in English ed G. S. Balarama Gupta, NIRIEL, 4-29, Jayanagar, Gulbarga 585105. Annual sub Rs600; twice a year.
Kavya Bharati The Study Centre for Indian Literature in English and Translation, American College, Post Box 63, Madurai 625002. e-mail: <
Littcrit: An Indian Response to Literature ed P. P. Ajayakumar. “Samanuaya” TRA-A63, Thuruvikkal, P.O. Ulloor Thiruvananthapuram 695031. e-mail: <
Muse India: The Literary Ejournal Managing ed G. S. P. Rao. www.museindia.com. E-mail:
The Critical Endeavour eds M. Q. Khan and Bijay Kumar Das. Researchers’ Association, D 221, Sector 7, C.D.A. Cuttack 753014. e-mail:
The Literary Criterion ed C. N. Srinath. Dhvanyaloka, Mysore 570006. e-mail:
The Quest ed Ravi Nandan Sinha. 202, Preeti Enclave, Chandni Chowk, Kanke Road, Ranchi 834008. e-mail:
Special Issues
The Literary Criterion issues of 2012 (Nos 1&2 and 3&4) are “Diamond Jubilee Year Special Issues” reprinting a selection of the essays that appeared in the journal during these sixty years.
The Quest Vol.26 No.2 special issue on Amitav Ghosh.