I.3.2English Literature
In the 20th century, several Indian writers have distinguished
themselves not only in traditional Indian languages but also in English, a
language inherited from the British. As a result of British colonisation, India
has developed its own unique dialect of English known as Indian English. Indian
English typically follows British spelling and pronunciation as opposed to
American, and books published in India reflect this phenomenon. Indian English
literature, however, tends to utilise more internationally recognisable
vocabulary then does colloquial Indian English, in the same way that American
English literature does so as compared to American slang.
India's only Nobel laureate in literature was
the Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore, who wrote some of his
work originally in English, and did some of his own English translations from
Bengali. India's best selling English-language novelists of all-time are the
contemporary writers like Chetan Bhagat, Manjiri Prabhu and Ashok Banker. More
recent major writers in English who are either Indian or of Indian origin and
derive much inspiration from Indian themes are R. K. Narayan, Vikram Seth,
Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Raja Rao, Amitav Ghosh, Rohinton Mistry, Vikram
Chandra, Mukul Kesavan, Raj Kamal
Jha, Vikas Swarup, Khushwant Singh, Shashi Tharoor,
Nayantara
Sehgal, Anita Desai, Kiran Desai, Ashok Banker, Shashi Deshpande,
Arnab Jan Deka, Jhumpa Lahiri, Kamala Markandaya, Gita Mehta, Manil
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Suri, Manjiri Prabhu, Ruskin Bond, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
and Bharati Mukherjee.
In category of Indian writing in English is poetry.
Rabindranath Tagore wrote in Bengali and English and was responsible for the
translations of his own work into English. Other early notable poets in English
include Derozio, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Toru Dutt, Romesh Chunder Dutt, Sri
Aurobindo, Sarojini Naidu, and her brother Harindranath Chattopadhyay.
In the 1950s, the Writers Workshop collective in Calcutta was
founded by the poet and essayist P. Lal to advocate and publish Indian writing
in English. The press was the first to publish Pritish Nandy, Sasthi Brata, and
others; it continues to this day to provide a forum for English writing in
India. In modern times, Indian poetry in English was typified by two very
different poets. Dom Moraes, winner of the Hawthornden Prize at the age of 19
for his first book of poems A Beginning went on to occupy a
pre-eminent position among Indian poets writing in English. Nissim Ezekiel, who
came from India's tiny Bene Israel Jewish community, created a voice and place
for Indian poets writing in English and championed their work.
Their contemporaries in English poetry in India were
Jayanta
Mahapatra, Gieve Patel, A. K. Ramanujan, Arun Kolatkar,
Dilip
Chitre, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Eunice De Souza, Kersi Katrak, P. Lal
and Kamala Das among several others.
Younger generations of poets writing in English include G. S.
Sharat
Chandra, Hoshang Merchant, Makarand Paranjape, Anuradha
Bhattacharyya, Nandini Sahu, Arundhathi Subramaniam,
Jeet
Thayil, Ranjit Hoskote, Sudeep Sen, Abhay K, Jerry Pinto, K Srilata,
Gopi Kottoor, Tapan Kumar Pradhan, Arnab Jan Deka, Anju Makhija, Robin
Ngangom, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Smita Agarwal, Vihang A.
Naik
and Vivekanand Jha among others.
Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (1838-1894) wrote Rajmohan's
Wife and published it in 1864; it is the first Indian novel written in
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A generation of exiles also sprang from the Indian diaspora.
Among
these are names like Agha Shahid Ali, Sujata Bhatt,
Richard
Crasta, Yuyutsu Sharma, Shampa Sinha, Tabish Khair and Vikram
Seth.
In recent years, English-language writers of Indian origin are
being published in the West at an increasing rate.
Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Kiran Desai and Arvind Adiga
have won the prestigious Man Booker Prize, with Salman Rushdie going on to win
the Booker of Bookers.
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