COURSE: Modern Indian Fiction in English & English Translation
FACULTY: Professor R. Raj Rao
OBJECTIVES: The objective of the course is to introduce students to fictional representations of key social and political issues, such as colonialism, the partition of India, caste, gender, religion and spirituality, sexuality, the urban-rural divide, the Indian diaspora abroad, and so on, that have majorly characterized twentieth century India. While mosyt of the fiction that the students will read has been written originally in English, some of it has been written in regional languages such as Marathi, and will be read in English translation.
UNITS: Each primary text to be read in class will comprise a unit. The units are: 1. A Passage to India (E M Forster) 2. Untouchable (Mulk Raj Anand) 3. The Guide (R K Narayan) 4. Train to Pakistan (Khushwant Singh) 5. Shame (Salman Rushdie) 6. English August, An Indian Story (Upamanyu Chatterjee) 7. That Long Silence (Shashi Deshpande) 8. The Branded (Laxman Gaikwad) 9. "Year's End" (Jhumpa Lahiri) 10. The Boyfriend (R Raj Rao)
SECONDARY READING LIST: M K Naik, A History of Indian English Literature. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1980.
M K Naik and Shyamala Narayan, Indian English Literature 1980-2000: A Critical Survey. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2001.
M K Naik, Perspectives on Indian Fiction in English. New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1982.
Tabish Khair, Babu Fictions: Alienation in Contemporary Indian English Novels. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Viney Kirpal ed., The New Indian Novel in English: A Study of the 1980s. New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1990.
Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins, Freedom At Midnight. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 2006.
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. London: Routledge, 1989.
Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991. London: Viking Penguin, 1991.
Arvind Krishna Mehrotra ed., An Illustrated History of Indian Literature in English. New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2003.
Sudhakar Pandey and R Raj Rao eds., Image of India in the Indian Novel in English. New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1993.
Brinda Bose and Subhabrata Bhattacharya eds., The Phobic and the Erotic: The Politics of Sexualities in Contemporary India. Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2007.
FILMS: Gandhi. Director: Richard Attenborough Train to Pakistan. Director: Pamela Rooks A Passage to India. Director: David Lean The Guide. Director: Vijay Anand English August. Director: Dev Benegal The Namesake. Director: Mira Nair
EVALUATION & GRADING Total Marks: 100
Students will submit a short essay of 20 marks on each primary text every two weeks. They will thus submit five essays in all. Dates of Submission: September 22 October 6, 20 November 17, 29.