The Indian Imagination : Critical Essays on Indian Writing in English

The Indian Imagination focuses on literary developments in English both in the colonial and postcolonial periods of Indian history. Six divergent writers - Aurobindo Ghose (Sri Aurobindo), Mulk Raj Anand, Balachandra Rajan, Nissim Ezekiel, Anita Desai, and Arun Joshi - represent a consciousness that has emerged from the confrontation between tradition and modernity. The colonial fantasy of British India was finally dissolved in the first half of this century, only to be succeeded by another fantasy, that of the reinstituted sovereign nation-state. This study argues that the two phases of history - like the two phases of Indian writing in English - together represent the sociohistorical process of colonization and decolonization and the affirmation of identity. Front Matter....Pages i-xiii Indian Writing in English: Structure of Consciousness, Literary History and Critical Theory....Pages 1-29 Sri Aurobindo as a Poet: A Reassessment....Pages 31-46 The Social and Political Vision of Sri Aurobindo....Pages 47-60 Sri Aurobindo as a Critic....Pages 61-81 Mulk Raj Anand: A Reappraisal....Pages 83-103 Ideological Confrontation and Synthesis in Mulk Raj Anand’s Conversations in Bloomsbury....Pages 105-124 Balachandra Rajan’s The Dark Dancer: A Critical Reading....Pages 125-148 Myth and Imagery in Nissim Ezekiel’s The Unfinished Man: A Critical Reading....Pages 149-161 Humanity Defrauded: Notes toward a Reading of Anita Desai’s Baumgartner’s Bombay....Pages 163-188 Alienation, Identity and Structure in Arun Joshi’s The Apprentice....Pages 189-202 The Metaphysics and Metastructure of Appearance and Reality in Arun Joshi’s The Last Labyrinth....Pages 203-210 Back Matter....Pages 211-268