Writing India, Writing English: Literature, Language, Location

ISBN-13: 9780415693790 / Angielski / Twarda / 2011 / 190 str.

G. J. V. Prasad

Opis

The essays in this book look at the interaction between English and other Indian languages and focus on the pressure of languages on writers and on each other. Divided into two parts, the first part of the book deals with the pressure that English language has exerted, and continues to exert, in India and our ideas of connectedness as a nation in the ways in which we deal with this pressure. The essays emphasise on the emergence of the hybrid language in the Tamil cultural world because of the presence of English (and Hindi); on the politics of 'anthologisation'; and how Karnad's Tughlaq deals with the idea of the nation, looking at its historical location. The second part of the book focuses on Indian English literature and deals with how it interacts with the idea of representing the Indian nation, sometimes obsessively, seen both in poetry and novels. The book argues that the writer's location is crucial to the world of imagination, whether in the novel, poetry or drama. The world is inflected by the location of the author, and the struggle between the language dominant in that location and English is part of the creative tension that provides energy and uniqueness to writing.

Spis treści

Preface Part I: India, English, Translation 1. A Minute Stretching into Centuries: Macaulay, English and India 2. Translating Dalit Tamil Literature into English 3. Tamil, Hindi, English: A New Ménage à Trois 4. Trans-creating India(s): The Nation in English Translation 5. Karnad, Tughlaq, India Part II: Indian English Literature and the Nation 6. Writing India Writing English 7. Romance in the West: Toru Dutt the Novelist 8. ‘Food for Thought’: The Tamil World of R. K. Narayan 9. Always in the Poet’s Eye: Nissim Ezekiel’s India 10. India in Verse: The Indian English Nation 11. Terrifying Tara: The Angst of the Family. Bibliography. About the Author. Index

O autorze

G. J. V. Prasad is Professor of English at the Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.