When Borne Across: Literary Cosmopolitics In The Contemporary Indian Novel (south Asian Studies)

India's 1997 celebration of the Golden Jubilee marked fifty years of independence from British colonial rule. This anniversary is the impetus for Bishnupriya Ghosh's exploration of the English language icons of South Asian post-colonial literature: Salman Rushdie, Vikram Chandra, Amitav Ghosh, Upamanyu Chatterjee, and Arundhati Roy. These authors, grouped together as South Asian cosmopolitical writers, produce work challenging and expanding preconceived notions of Indian cultural identity, while being sold simultaneously as popular English literature within the global market. This commodification of Indian language and identity reinforces incomplete and simplified images of India and its writers, and at times counteracts the expressed agenda of the writers. In __When Borne Across__, Ghosh focuses on the politics of language and history, and the related processes of translation and migration within the global network. In so doing, she develops a new approach to literary studies that adapts conventional literary analysis to the pressures, constraints, and liberties of our present era of globalization. India's 1997 celebration of the Golden Jubilee marked fifty years of independence from British colonial rule. This anniversary is the impetus for Bishnupriya Ghosh's exploration of the English language icons of South Asian postcolonial literature: Salman Rushdie, Vikram Chandra, Amitav Ghosh, Upamanyu Chatterjee, and Arundhati Roy. These authors, grouped together as South Asian cosmopolitical writers, produce work challenging and expanding preconceived notions of Indian cultural identity, while being sold simultaneously as popular English literature within the global market. This commodification of Indian language and identity reinforces incomplete and simplified images of India and its writers, and at times counteracts the expressed agenda of the writers. In this book, Ghosh focuses on the politics of language and history, and the related processes of translation and migration within the global network. In so doing, she develops a new approach to literary studies that adapts conventional literary analysis to the pressures, constraints, and liberties of our present era of globalization. Contents 7 List of Illustrations 9 Acknowledgments 11 Prologue 15 Chapter 1: Sighting Circulation: A Renaissance at the Golden Jubilee 28 Chapter 2: Passages and Passports: Globalism, Language, Migration 61 Chapter 3: Linguistic Migrations: Experiments in English Vernaculars 94 Chapter 4: The Body of the Other: Narrating Violence, Community, History 135 Chapter 5: Of Ghosts and Grafts: Uncanny Narration in Cosmopolitical Novels 166 Epilogue 198 Notes 203 Selected Bibliography 223 Index 237 About the Author 245