Indian Fiction In English by M. Rajeshwar, P.M. Rao

Indian fiction in English now enjoys a major presence across the world. From its humble beginnings in the thirties it has come a long way to emerge as a serious contender to some of the most coveted literary prizes in the world. In terms of popularity and market presence it has experienced phenomenal success in the recent years. While it behoves well to celebrate its success and revel in its glory, we should also stop to enquire into its strengths and weaknesses, its achievements and failures and its present status and future prospects standing as we do on the threshold of the twenty first century. The underlying purpose of Indian Fiction in English, therefore, is to attempt a fairly comprehensive ‘turn of the century stocktaking’ of Indian fiction in English.
The anthology puts together incisive and highly rated articles on almost all the important Indian novelists in English. Starting with the three pioneers, namely Mulk Raj Anand, R.K. Narayan and Raja Rao, it goes on to include perceptive and analytical articles on the second generation novelists such as Manohar Malgonkar, Bhabani Bhattacharya, Arun Joshi, Anita Desai, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Kamala Markandaya and Nayantara Sahgal and finally, it attempts an assessment of the relatively recent entrants into the field like Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Bharati Mukherjee, Rukun Advani and Boman Desai.
Among the contributors are some of the most respected scholars in the field of English studies in India: K.K Sharma, Saros Cowasjee, Alastair Niven, H.H. Anniah Gowda, G.S. Amur, Ayyappa Paniker, M. Sivaramkrishana, Vasanth A. Shahane, Shiv K. Kumar and S. Krishna Sarma.