English Literature

Nectar in a Sieve Set in rural India during a phase of urban development, Indian author Kamala Markandaya’s acclaimed novel,  Nectar in a Sieve  (1954), follows Rukmani, an elderly woman who reflects on the various hardships and triumphs of her lifetime. Married at twelve years old to Nathan, a farmhand, Rukmani struggles to find happiness as she toils in the fields, grapples with unthinkable loss, and deals with sweeping changes in her homeland. The title of the novel derives from the 1825 poem “Work Without Hope” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.  Nectar in a Sieve  has sold more than one million copies. It has been called “very moving” by  Harper’s Magazine , “a novel to retain your heart” by  Milwaukee Journal , and “an elemental book. It has something better than power, the truth of distilled experience” by  New York Herald Tribune . Narrated by Rukmani, an elderly Indian woman, the story begins in rural India. Rukmani is the educated daught...

Coolie Coolie , by Mulk Raj Anand, was first published in 1936 and helped to establish Anand as one of the foremost Anglophone Indian writers of his day. Like much of his other work, this novel is concerned with the consequences of British Rule in India and with the rigid caste system that structured Indian society. “Coolie” is a term for an unskilled laborer, though it can also be used as a pejorative. Anand’s novel tells the story of Munoo, a young boy from the Kangra Hills in Bilaspur. He is an orphan who lives with his aunt Gujri and uncle Daya Ram ; however, early in the novel they reveal they can no longer support Munoo and insist that he get a job. This is the beginning of a journey that will take Munoo to Bombay and beyond, but it also marks the end of his childhood. With his Uncle, Munoo travels to a nearby town where he finds a job as a servant to a bank clerk, Babu Nathoo Ram. Munoo is mistreated by his master’s wife ( Bibi  Uttam Kaur) but he admires his m...

Ruskin Bond  (1934- )    Ruskin bond is an Indian author of British descent.  The Indian Council of Child Education, has recognized his role in the growth of children’s literature in India. He got Sahitya Akademi Award in the year 1992, for “Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra”, his published works in English. It contains 14 stories.  He was awarded Padma Shree Award in the year 1999 and Padma Bhusan in 2014.  Bond said: “The past is always with us, for it feeds the present”.  Bond’s “A Fight of Pigeons” novel set in 1857 about Ruth Labadoor and her family of Hindus and Muslims is adapted into film “Junoon”. Important Works of Ruskin Bond   The Room of the Roof (1956)  The Blue Umbrella (1974)  The Night Train at Deoli and Other Stories (1988)  The Best of Ruskin Bond (2000  A Flight of Pigeons (2003)  Out Trees still Grow in Dehra (1991) Out of Darkness (Lyrical Poem).

Arundhati Roy  (1959 –)  Suzanna Arundhati Roy is an Indian writer who is best known for her novel ‘God of Small Things’ (1997) which won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997.  She is also a political activist involved in human rights and environmental causes. She was awarded with Sahitya Akademi Award in 2006.  She is labeled as diasporic writer. Important Works    Fictions   1 . The God of Small Things (1997)  It centers around a tragedy that sends a family apart and its lasting effects on the twins who were at the heart of it.  The book explores how the small things affect people’s behavior and their lives.  The story is set in Ayemenem (Kerala).  Fraternal twins Rahel and Esthappen are seven years old in 1969. Ammu is the most important female character. ‘Baba’ is Rahel & Estha’s father who is divorced by Ammu when the children were very young.  The story enters in 1990 as the young women Rahel returns...

Arvind Adiga  (1974 – )  Arvind Adiga is an Indian-Australian writer and journalist.  His debut novel The White Tiger won the 2008 Man Booker Prize. He was born in Madras (Chennai).  He is the fourth Indian born author to win Booker Prize after Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai ( V.S Naipaul is also of Indian origin but was not born in India). Adiga’s second book Between the Assassinations (2008) features 12 interlinked short stories.  His second novel and third book “ Last Man in Tower ” was published in UK in 2011. Important Works  1. The White Tigers (2008)  The novel provides a darkly humorous perspective of India’s class struggle in a globalized world as told through a retrospective narration from Balram Halwai, a village boy. He is praised one day as a rare “white tiger” by a visiting School inspector”.   The novel depicts Balram’s killing his master in Delhi and flees to Bangalore. Ultimately he transcends hi...

 Raja Rao  (1908-2006)      Raja Rao was an Indian Kannada writer of English language novels and short stories whose works are deeply rooted in Hinduism.  The Serpent and the Rope written in 1960, a semi auto-biographical novel recounting a search for spiritual truth in Europe and India, established him as one of the finest Indian prose stylist and won him the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1964.  For the entire body of his work, Rao was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for literature in 1998.  The novel “Kanthapura” (1938) was an account of the impact of Gandhi’s teachings on non-violent resistance against British.   Rao returned to the theme of ‘Gandhism’ in the short story collection “The Cow of the Barricades (1947).   In 1998, he published Gandhi’s biography “Great Indian Way: A life of Mahatma Gandhi”.  The Serpent and the Rope dramatized the relation between Indian and western culture. The Serpent i...

 Mulkraj Anand  (1905-2004)  Mulk Raj Anand was an Indian writer in English literature notable for his depiction of the lives of the poorer castes in traditional Indian society. He is notable for incorporating Punjabi and Hindustani idioms into English. His first main novel “Untouchable” (1935) was a chilling expose of the day-to-day life of a member of Indian’s untouchable caste.  For introducing Hindi and Punjabi idioms, Anand is regarded as India’s Charles Dickens.  He is one of the pioneers of indo Indo-American fiction together with R. K. Narayan, Ahmed Ali and Raja Rao.  His first prose essay was a response to the suicide of an aunt in his family who had been ex-communicated by his family for sharing a meal with a Muslim woman. The introduction of untouchable is written by E. M. Forster. Forster wrote: “Avoiding rhetoric and circumlocution, it has gone straight to the heart of its subjects and purified it”.  He spent half of his life...

R.K. Narayan  (1906-2001)    Rasipuram (Name of his Village) Krishnaswami (Name of his father) Iyer Narayan Swami was an Indian writer best known for his works set in the fictional south Indian town of Malgudi.  R.K. Narayan is one of the three leading figures of early Indian literature in English (alongside Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao) and is credited with bringing the genre to the rest of the world. The debut novel of R.K.Narayan is Swami and Friends (1935).  Graham Greene was his mentor and friend who was instrumental in getting publishers for Narayan’s first four books including semi-autobiographical trilogy of :  Swami and Friends  The Bachelor of Arts The English Teacher  His is well known for The Financial Expert (1951), and Sahita Akademi Award Winner “The Guide” which was adopted for the film.  He is compared to William Faulkner, who also created a fictional town that stood for the reality, brought out the humour and e...