Study Notes by Ashok Sir
Comprehensive study notes compiled by Ashok Sir
Rabindranath Tagore
(7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941)
Rabindranath Tagore was a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter. He was the author of the “profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful” poetry of Gitanjali, the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Generally referred to as “the Bard of Bengal,” he has also been called Gurudev, Kaviguru, Biswakabi, Maharishi, India’a Poet laureate, and the sun of India.
He has written about 2000 poems and 1400 songs.
Tagore was a great mystic and was influenced by the Vedas and Upanishads, the medieval mystics, the folk singers of Bengal, the poetry of Kabir, and the works of Dante.
Tagore was the first Indian writer who stamped a permanent place on the world literary map.
He wrote mainly in Bengali but translated many of his Bengali poems and plays into English.
He visited England and came in contact with Bernard Shaw, Galsworthy, H.G. Wells, John Masefield, W.B. Yeats, and Ezra Pound.
W.B. Yeats called him a pure poet. Yeats was much impressed by his Gitanjali and wrote a detailed Introduction appreciating its poetic beauty.
Known mostly for his poetry, Tagore wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs.
His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical nature.
His poetry reveals a highly personal quest for divine. He began his literary career by writing in Bengali. Banaphul is his first verse.
Among his almost fifty volumes of poetry are Mansi (The Ideal one, 1890), Sonar Tari (The Golden Boat, 1984), Geetanjali (Song Offerings, 1910), Gitimalya (Wreath of Songs, 1914), Balaka (The Flight of Cranes, 1916), and Utsarga (Offering).
The Gardener is the richest collection of love lyrics in Indian English literature.
The Child is his sole original creation in English. The poem was first written in English and translated into English.
In November 1913, Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize for his English translation of Gitanjali.
Gitanjali is a collection of 103 lyrics in the great tradition. It contained the translation of 53 poems from the original Bengali Gitanjali, as well as 50 other poems which were from his drama Achalayatan and 8 other books of poetry, mainly Gitimalya, Naivedya, and Kheya (17, 15, and 11 poems respectively). It is a collection of Song Offerings to the creator and its motto is - I am here to sing the songs.
Gitanjali, Tagore’s masterpiece, is a superb blend of mysticism and romanticism.
Fiction
Tagore’s famous novels are The Home and the World, The Wreck, Gora, Hungry Stones, Broken Ties, and Yogayog. Tagore’s novels were originally written in Bengali. Three of his novels - The Wreck (1921), Gora (1923), and The Home and the World (1919) were translated into English. The Kabuliwal and The Postmaster are his well-known stories.
Drama
Tagore has been called the father of modern Indian stagecraft. King and Queen, Chitra, Post Office, The Cycle of Spring, Sacrifice and Other Plays, Red Oleanders, Stray Birds, Sanyasi, Malini, and Raja are his famous plays. He wrote a large number of plays, 53 in all, 13 of which he translated into English.
The collection of Tagore’s essays and speech is published under the title The Voice of Humanity. In November 1912, Tagore visited America where he lectured at many places. These lectures were published in one volume, entitled Shadhna.
In 1901 Tagore founded his school, Shanti Niketan at Bolpur.
Mulk Raj Anand
(12 December 1905 – 28 September 2004)
Mulk Raj Anand, who called himself a “bogus professor,” was born on Dec 12, 1905, in a Hindu Kshatriya family in Peshawar.
Mulk Raj Anand was notable for his depiction of the lives of the poorer castes in traditional Indian society.
One of the pioneers of Indo-Anglian fiction, he, together with R. K. Narayan, Ahmad Ali, and Raja Rao, was one of the first India-based writers in English to gain an International readership.
Anand is admired for his novels and short stories, which have acquired the status of classics of modern Indian English literature; they are noted for their perceptive insight into the lives of the oppressed and for their analysis of impoverishment, exploitation, and misfortune.
Anand describes the misery and the wretchedness of the poor and their struggle for a better life.
He became known for his protest novel Untouchable (1935), followed by other works on the Indian poor such as Coolie (1936) and Two Leaves and a Bud (1937).
He is also noted for being among the first writers to incorporate Punjabi and Hindustani idioms into English. He is known as the Indian Charles Dickens.
His first novel, Untouchable, published in 1935, is a chilling exposé of the lives of India’s untouchable caste. The novel depicts a single day in the life of Bakha, a toilet-cleaner, who accidentally bumps into a member of a higher caste, triggering a series of humiliations. The novel’s introduction was written by his friend E. M. Forster.
Coolie (1936) is a prose epic of modern India. It is the novel of the poor and the downtrodden. The hero of the novel is Munoo, a boy born as a peasant who leaves his village to become a domestic servant, a factory worker, and a rickshaw coolie.
Two Leaves and a Bud (1937) details the miserable plight of the labourers of tea plantation of Assam. The Protagonist is Gangu.
Anand’s trilogy - The Village (1939), Across the Black Waters (1939), and The Sword and the Sickle (1942), traces the career of Lal Singh, a Punjabi peasant through various experiences in India and abroad.
Other Novels
- The Big Heart (1945)
- The Lost Child (1934)
- Seven Summers: A Memoir (1951)
- The Private Life of an Indian Prince (1953)
- The Old Woman and the Cow (1960)
- The Road (1961)
- The Death of a Hero (1964)
Short story collections
- The Lost Child and Other Stories (1934)
- The Barber’s Trade Union and Other Stories (1944)
- The Tractor and the Corn Goddess and Other Stories (1947)
- Reflections on the Golden Bed and Other Stories (1953)
- The Power of Darkness and Other Stories (1959)
- Lajwanti and Other Stories (1966)
- Between Tears and Laughter (1973)
- Indian Fairy Tales (1946)
- More Indian Fairy Tales (1961)
Autobiographies (Autobiographical Novels)
- Seven Summers (1951)
- Morning Face (1971) - won the Sahitya Akademi Award (Best Literature award) in India.
Notable awards
- International Peace Prize - 1953
- Padma Bhushan - 1968
- Sahithya Akademi Award – 1971
R.K. Narayan
(October 10, 1906 – May 13, 2001)
R.K. Narayan, full name Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami, is perhaps the most distinguished Indian writer of fiction in English. He is best known for his work set in the fictional South Indian town of Malgudi.
He was a leading author of early Indian literature in English along with Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao.
Narayan’s mentor and friend Graham Greene was instrumental in getting publishers for Narayan’s first four books, including the semi-autobiographical trilogy of Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts, and The English Teacher.
The fictional town of Malgudi was first introduced in Swami and Friends.
The Financial Expert was hailed as one of the most original works of 1951.
The Guide won the Sahitya Academy Award and Filmfare Award.
- First novel: Swami and Friend (written in 1930, published in 1935)
- First reference to Malgudi: (a fictional town)
- Characters: Swami, Rajan and Mani
The Bachelor of Arts (1937) is organised under four parts and each part presents a certain stage in the growth of the protagonist Chandran.
The Dark Room (1938) – The central character of the novel is Savitri, a submissive housewife who is married to Ramani. Savitri is a typical Indian housewife of that time, very much dominated and neglected by her husband. There is a dark room (kitchen) in their house where Savitri retires whenever her husband’s harshness seems unbearable to her.
The English Teacher (1945) – tells the story of an English teaching college professor named Krishna.
Mr. Sampath: The Painter of Malgudi (1949) – The novel reveals the relation between an editor (Mr. Shrinivas) and painter (Mr. Sampath).
The Financial Expert (1952) – Considered to be his masterpiece and hailed as one of the most original works of fiction. William Walsh hails Margayya, the hero of the novel, as probably Narayan’s greatest single comic creation.
The Guide (1958) – the most representative of Narayan’s writing skills. The main characters of the novel are Raju, Rosie and Marco. The book won him the Sahitya Akademi award in 1958. The film Guide was released in 1965, based on the novel.
The Vendor of Sweets (1967) – The story of an old orthodox Brahmin, Jagan and his son Mali.
Works, Awards and Honours
Novels
- Swami and Friends
- The Bachelor of Arts
- The Dark Room
- The English Teacher
- Mr. Sampath
- The Financial Expert
- Waiting for the Mahatma
- The Guide
- The Man-Eater of Malgudi
- The Vendor of Sweets
- A Tiger for Malgudi
- Talkative Man
- The World of Nagaraj
- Grandmother’s Tale
Non-fiction
- Next Sunday
- My Dateless Diary
- My Days
- Reluctant Guru
- The Emerald Route
- A Writer’s Nightmare
- A Story-Teller’s World
- The Writerly Life
- Mysore
Mythology
- Gods, Demons and Others
- The Ramayana
- The Mahabharata
Short story collections
- Malgudi Days
- An Astrologer’s Day and Other Stories
- Lawley Road and Other Stories
- A Horse and Two Goats
- Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories
- The Grandmother’s Tale and Selected Stories
Awards
- Sahitya Akademi Award (The Guide) - 1960
- Padma Bhushan - 1964
- Film Fare Award (The Guide) - 1980
Sarojini Naidu
(13 February – 2 March 1949)
Sarojini Naidu was a poet and an Indian political activist. A proponent of civil rights, women’s emancipation, and anti-imperialistic ideas, she was an important figure in India’s struggle for independence from colonial rule. Naidu’s work as a poet earned her the sobriquet ‘the Nightingale of India’, or ‘Bharat Kokila’ by Mahatma Gandhi because of the colour, imagery and lyrical quality of her poetry.
Born in a Bengali family in Hyderabad, Chattopadhyay was educated in Madras, London, and Cambridge.
Maher Muneer, her first play written at the age of 12, gave her recognition and also impressed the Nawab of Hyderabad. At the age of 16, she received a scholarship from the Nizam of Hyderabad and went to London King’s College, where she met with Nobel Laureates Arthur Symons and Edmond Gosse; they advised her to focus on Indian themes for writing.
She was appointed the President of the Indian National Congress in 1925 and later became the Governor of the United Provinces in 1947, becoming the first woman to hold the office of Governor in the Dominion of India.
Naidu’s poetry includes both children’s poems and others written on more serious themes including patriotism, romance, and tragedy. She died of a cardiac arrest on 2 March 1949.
Naidu’s poetry is written in English and usually took the form of lyric poetry in the tradition of British Romanticism. She was known for her vivid use of rich sensory images in her writing and for her lush depictions of India. She was well-regarded as a poet, considered the “Indian Yeats”.
Her first book of poems was published in London in 1905, titled The Golden Threshold. The publication was suggested by Edmund Gosse and bore an introduction by Arthur Symons. This volume contains 40 poems classified into three sections – 12 folk poems, 6 songs for music, and 22 poems. “Palanquin Bearers,” “Wandering Singers,” “Indian Weavers,” “Village Song,” and “To India, Bangel Sellers” are some of the well-known poems in the volume.
Sarojini Naidu’s second collection of poems, The Bird of Time, appeared in 1912 with an introduction by Edmund Gosse. The title of the anthology is after its first poem. It contains 46 poems which are divided into four sections. “The Dirge,” “The Hussain Sagar,” “An Indian Love Song,” “An Anthem of Love,” and “Song of Radha The Milkmaid” are some of the well-known poems of this volume.
The Broken Wings came out in 1917. It was the last of Naidu’s books published in her lifetime. It has 61 lyrics. “Songs of Life and Death,” “The flowering Year,” “Gift of India,” and “Lotus” (a sonnet dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi) are the major poems of this volume.
The poems of all three volumes were later published in one big volume named - The Sceptred Flute: Songs of India (1943).
Her fourth collection of poems, The Feather of the Dawn (1961) was published long after her death by her daughter, Padmaja. It contains 37 poems (5 sonnets and 32 short lyrics).
Works, Awards and Honours
Poetry
- The Golden Threshold - 1905
- The Birds of Time: Songs of Life, Death & the Spring - 1912
- The Broken Wings: Songs of Love, Death and Destiny including ‘The Gift of India’ - 1917
- The Sceptred Flute: Songs of India - 1943
- The Feather of the Dawn - 1961
Titles of Selected Poems
- Ecstasy
- The Indian Gypsy
- Indian Weavers
- The Pardah Nashin
- The Queen’s Rival
- The Snake Charmer
- The Soul’s Prayer
- To the God of Pain
- Wandering Singers
- Damayante to Nala in the Hour of Exile
- To a Buddha Seated on a Lotus
- Autumn Songs
- Bangle Sellers
- Coramandel Fishers
Toru Dutt
(4 March 1856 – 30 August 1877)
Toru Dutt was a Bengali poet from British India who wrote in English and French. She is among the founding figures of Indo-Anglian literature, alongside Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, Manmohan Ghose, and Sarojini Naidu.
She is known for her volumes of poetry in English, A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields (1875) and Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan (1882), and for a novel in French, Le Journal de Mademoiselle d’Arvers (1879).
Her poems explore themes of loneliness, longing, patriotism, and nostalgia. Dutt died at the age of 21.
A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields (1877) is a translation of 165 poems of 75 French poets. Aru’s (Toru’s sister) contribution consists of 8 translations, and the remaining 157 poems have been translated by Toru Dutt.
Her second volume of poems, published under the title of Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan (1882) with an introduction by Edmund Gosse, is a slim volume of 9 ballads and 7 sonnets and poems.
Her well-known poems “Sita” and “Our Casuarina Tree” are a true mirror of her own life and her background.
“The Lotus” is a famous sonnet by Toru Dutt. “Baugmaree” is also a sonnet and is considered one of her excellent poems.
Toru Dutt wrote two novels - Bianca and Le Journal De Mademoiselle D’Arvers. The former, an incomplete romance, is in English, and the latter, in diary form, is in French. Bianca is the first novel in English by an Indian woman writer.
Works
Published in her life
- A Sheaf in French Field (Translations of French poems in English) - 1875
- A Scene from Contemporary History (Two essays on Leconte de Lisle and Henry Vivian Derozio) - 1875
Published Posthumously
- Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan - 1882
- Bianca or The Young Spanish Maiden - 1878
- Le Journal De Mademoiselle D’Arvers - 1879
Title of Selected Poems
- Buttoo
- Jogadhya Uma
- Near Hastings
- Prehlad
- Sindhu
- France 1870
- Lakshaman
- Our Casuarina Tree
- Savitri
- Sita
- The Tree of Life
Nissim Ezekiel
(Dec. 16, 1924 – Jan 9, 2004)
Nissim Ezekiel was an Indian Jewish poet, actor, playwright, editor, and art critic. He was a fundamental figure in postcolonial India’s literary history.
Ezekiel belonged to Mumbai’s Marathi-speaking Jewish community, known as the Bene Israel.
He was a professor of English in Bombay University and also a professor at Leeds University in 1964.
Nissim Ezekiel is generally considered the father of post-independence Indian English verse, the barometer of modern India’s literary atmosphere. He was very much influenced by the poetry of Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot.
Nissim Ezekiel is an urban poet, a poet of the city, Bombay, which symbolises modern urban life with all its complexities.
‘A Morning Walk in India’ and ‘Background Casually’ are his main poems dealing with the theme of urbanity.
‘Goodbye Party for Miss Pushpa T.S.’ is a social satire.
‘Enterprise’ is one of the loveliest lyrics of Nissim Ezekiel. It is a part of his volume The Unfinished Man, a collection of 10 brilliant poems.
‘Night of Scorpion’ describes a mother’s selfless love for her children.
Nalini, Marriage Poem, and The Sleep Walkers are three of his early plays published in the year 1969. Later on, he wrote Song of Deprivation and Don’t Call It Suicide.
Works, Awards and Honours
Collections (Poetry)
- A Time to Change - 1952
- Sixty Poems - 1953
- The Third - 1959
- The Unfinished Man - 1960
- The Exact Name - 1965
- Hymns in Darkness - 1976
- Latter-Day Psalms - 1982
- Collected Poems - 1989
Plays
- Nalini
- Marriage Poem
- The Sleep-Walkers
- Songs of Deprivation
- Who Needs No Introduction Editor
Essays: On Social Criticism
- Our Academic Community
- How Normal is Normality
- Tradition and All that case Against the Hippies
- A Quest of sanity
Titles of Selected Poems
- Declaration
- Virginal
- Marriage
- Case Study
- Enterprise
- Philosophy
- Nudes
- The Visitor
- The Encounter
- Two Nights of Love
- The Company I Keep
- Night of the Scorpion
- A Woman Observed
- Background, Casually
- The Way it Went
- The Railway Clerk
- Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher
- Poem of the Separation
- Goodbye Party for Miss Pushpa TS
Awards & Honours
- Sahitya Akademi Award (Latter-Day Psalms) - 1983
- Padma Shri - 1988
Ruskin Bond
(May 19, 1934 – …)
Ruskin Bond is an Indian author of British descent. He was born in a military hospital in Kasauli to Edith Clerk and Aubrey Bond.
Bond has written hundreds of short stories, essays, novels, and books for children. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1999 and Padma Bhushan in 2014.
He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1992 for Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra.
He wrote one of his first short stories, “Untouchable”, at the age of sixteen in 1951.
He wrote his first novel, The Room on the Roof, at the age of 17 and it was published when he was 21. It is a semi-autobiographical story of an orphaned Anglo-Indian boy, Rusty. Its sequel was Vagrants in the Valley.
The Blue Umbrella is a short story set in a small village of Himachal Pradesh. It was adapted into a Hindi film by the same name; the film won the National Film award for Best Children’s Film.
The Night Train at Deoli and Other Stories is a collection of 30 beautiful short stories.
A Guardian Angel is the story of a boy who is raised by a sex worker.
The Monkey is a typical Ruskin Bond story with a mixture of horror and humour.
Delhi is not Far is about the dreams of Arun, the struggling writer.
Rusty, The Boy from the Hills narrates the stories of Rusty, a quiet, imaginative, and sensitive boy. Ruskin Bond created Rusty to spin stories about his own past; Rusty’s adventures are Ruskin’s own.
Time Stops at Shamli and Other Stories is an enchanting collection of 21 stories.
In 1992, Ruskin won the Sahitya Academy Award for Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra. It is a collection of 14 short stories closely linked with each other.
Roads to Mussoorie is his ode to his home for more than 40 years, his dear city Mussoorie.
Ruskin Bond’s Children’s Omnibus is a collection of some of his best-loved stories. This volume includes Grandfather’s Private Zoo, Angry River Ghost Trouble, and Cricket for the Crocodile.
Rain in the Mountains is a collection of stories, snippets, essays, and poems.
A Book of Simple Living is a personal diary.
A Face in the Dark and Other Hauntings is a collection of paranormal tales. The book opens with “A Face in the Dark” and ends with “Night of the Millennium.”
Susanna’s Seven Husbands is the story of Susanna who has a weakness for falling in love with the wrong man. The movie 7 Khoon Maaf is based on this story.
Angry River is the story of a small island where Sita lived with her grandparents.
A Season of Ghosts includes 9 short stories and one novella.
The India I Love is a collection of 19 heartfelt poems and essays.
The Hidden Pool is Ruskin Bond’s first novel for children.
A Flight of Pigeons is a historical novella.
A Song of India (2020) is the fourth instalment in his memoir series after Looking for the Rainbow (2017), Till the Clouds Roll By (2017), and Coming Round the Mountain (2019).
Arun Balkrishna Kolatkar
(Nov. 1, 1932 – Sep 25, 2004)
Arun Balkrishna Kolatkar (born in Kolhapur, Maharashtra) is one of the most influential poets of the post-independence era. He wrote in both Marathi and English.
Jejuri (1976) is his first and finest collection of poems which won him the Commonwealth Poetry Prize in 1977. Jejuri is a collection of 31 poems pertaining to a visit to Jejuri, a place in Maharashtra famous for its temple of Khandoba. “Chaitanya” and “An Old Woman” are famous poems from this volume.
Kala Ghoda is his another collection of poems.
The Boatride and Other Poems was published in 2008.
Collected Poems, another collection of his poems, was published in 2010.
His Marathi verse collection Bhijki Vahi won the Sahitya Akademi Award in the year of his death (2004).
Titles of Selected Poems
- The Bus
- The Priest
- The Low Temple
- The Priest’s Son
- Makarand
- A Scratch
- The Blue Horse
- Chaintanya
- The Old Woman
- Heart of Ruin
- The Butterfly
- The Railway Station
- Three Cups of Tea
Anita Desai
(June 24, 1937 - )
Anita Desai was born in Mussoorie to a German mother, Toni Nime, and a Bengali father, D.N. Mazumdar, in June 1937. She has four children, including Booker-winning novelist Kiran Desai.
She is noted for her sensitive portrayal of female characters and the alienation of middle-class women in India.
She made her debut as a novelist with Cry, the Peacock (1963). It deals with the character of Maya – a neurotic heroine. Her desire for love of her husband Gautama remained unsatisfied.
Voices in the City (1965) tries to present a touching account of the life of Monisha, the married sister of Nirode. Monisha’s married life is empty within and without. She is married to Jiban and her relationship with him is marked only by loneliness because of carelessness of Jiban, or their misunderstanding.
Bye-Bye Blackbird (1971) is the third novel of Anita Desai. It is the story of three characters – two Bengalis: Adit Sen and Dev, and Adit’s English wife Sarah.
Where Shall We Go This Summer (1975) is the story of Sita, the daughter of a freedom fighter.
Fire on the Mountain (1977) centres on the lives of three women (Nanda Kaul, Rekha, Ila Das) who are victims, either physically or mentally, of the male dominance system. The novel won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1978.
Clear Light of the Day (1980) focuses on the tension and complex relationships among family members. The major characters are Tara Das and her husband Bakul. Desai considers Clear Light of Day her most autobiographical work.
The Village by the Sea (1982) deals with a traditional community of fishermen. The story of the novel is woven around an alcoholic fisherman, his sick wife, and their four children. The novel won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, a British book award, in 1983.
Baumgartner’s Bombay (1988) recounts the tragic life and violent death of Hugo Baumgartner, a Jew who emigrates from Nazi Germany to India.
Journey to Ithaca, Fasting, Feasting, and The Zigzag are some of her other novels.
Desai also wrote short fiction; her collections include Games at Twilight and Other Stories (1978), Diamond Dust and Other Stories (2000), and several children’s books, including The Village by the Sea (1982) and The Artist of Disappearance.
Shashi Deshpande
(1938 – )
Shashi Deshpande is the second daughter of the famous Kannada dramatist and Sanskrit scholar Adya Rangacharya and Sharada Adya. She was born in Dharwad, Karnataka, and was educated in Dharwad, Bombay, and Bangalore.
She worked as a journalist for some time for the magazine Onlookers. She is known for creating women characters who are the main protagonists of her novels. Her women characters are sensitive to the changing times and situations; they revolt against the traditions in their search for freedom. They succeed in achieving self-identity and independence.
The Legacy (1978) is her first collection of short stories.
The Dark Hold No Terrors (1980), her first novel, is about Saru (Sarita), the protagonist, an educated (doctor), economically independent middle-class wife who is made conscious of her gender as a child and whose loveless relationship with her parents and strained relations with her husband Manohar.
If I Die Today (1982) – The narrator in the novel is a young college lecturer, Manju, who is married to a doctor, and they live on the campus of a big medical college and hospital. The arrival of a cancer patient disturbs their lives.
Come Up and Be Dead is a mystery thriller.
Roots and Shadow (1983) is the story of Indu, an educated, highly sensitive girl.
That Long Silence (1988) is the story of Jaya and her husband Mohan. The novel brought her into the limelight and she won the Sahitya Akademi Award for this novel.
The Binding Vine (1992) is the story of Urmi (Urmila). Mira and Vanna are also the famous characters in the novel.
A Matter of Time (1999) explores the intricate relationship within an extended family encompassing three generations. The first generation representative is Kalyani, the grandmother; the second generation is represented by Sumi, the mother; and the third by Arundhati, the daughter.
Small Remedies (2000) is the story of Madhu, a lonely daughter, a sensitive and capable daughter, a vulnerable wife and mother, who faced the terrible vacuum caused by the death of Adit, her only son, in the wretched bomb blast that rocked Bombay in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid episode.
Moving On (2004) is the story of Manjari, a widow woman who comes to live with her parents.
In the Country of Deceit (2008) – The protagonist of the novel is a twenty-seven-year-old woman, Devayani Mudhol.
The Naravanpur is a novel based on the Quit India Movement and the role of children in it.
Kamala Das
(March 31, 1934 – May 31, 2009)
Kamala Das was one of the most prominent feminist voices in the postcolonial era. She wrote in her mother tongue, Malayalam, as well as in English. To her Malayalam readers, she was Madhavi Kutty, and to her English readers, she was Kamala Das. She converted to Islam in 1999 and is now known as Kamala Suraiyya.
For her extensive contribution to poetry, she earned the label “The Mother of Modern Indian English Poetry.”
She is generally compared with literary greats like Sylvia Plath because of the confessional style of her writing. Her open and honest treatment of female sexuality, free from any sense of guilt, infused her writing with power but also marked her as an iconoclast in her generation.
She was born to V.M. Nair and Nalapat Balamani Amma, a renowned Malayali poetess.
Her first and best collection of poems in English is Summer in Calcutta (1965). “The Testing of Sirens,” “The Dance of Eunuchs,” and “The Looking Glass” are some of the well-known poems of this volume.
It was followed by The Descendants (1967) and The Old Playhouse and Other Poems. She was awarded the Sahitya Academy Award for Collected Poems (1985).
Her famous poems “My Grandmother’s House,” “The Looking Glass,” and “A Hot Noon in Malabar” are personal and autobiographical.
She has also written her autobiography My Story and two novels, Alphabet of Lust and A Doll for the Child Prostitute.
The theme of her novels is the heroic struggle for liberation and the search for identity. The theme of lust and sex preoccupies Kamala Das in The Old Playhouse and Other Poems.
In “A Hot Noon in Malabar,” Kamala Das recalls some of her experiences in Malabar.
“My Mother at 66” is an ironical expression of the inevitability of death.
“An Introduction” appears in her collection Summer in Calcutta. It is one of the most famous poems written by Kamala Das in a self-reflective and confessional tone.
The Descendants, Stranger Time, Only the Soul Knows How to Sing, The Anamalai Poems, and Yaa Allah are some of her well-known collections of poems.
Jayant Mahapatra
(born 22 October 1928)
Jayanta Mahapatra, born into a prominent Odia Christian family, is a prolific poet. He is a late bloomer in the field of poetry, formally a Professor of Physics in Cuttack.
He is the first Indian poet to win a Sahitya Akademi award for English poetry. He is the author of poems such as “Indian Summer” and “Hunger,” which are regarded as classics in modern Indian English literature.
Mahapatra has authored 27 books of poems, of which 20 are in English and 7 are in Oriya. He began writing poetry at the age of forty.
Countermeasures (1973) and A Whiteness of Bones (1992) are his best collections of poems.
One of Mahapatra’s better-remembered works is the long poem Relationship for which he won the Sahitya Akademi Award.
His first volume, Close the Sky, Ten by Ten (1971), consists of 49 short lyrics.
“Dawn at Puri,” one of his best poems, is part of his volume A Rain of Rites.
Waiting (1979) expresses the poet’s relationship with the tradition and culture and historical past of Orissa.
The False Start (Bombay: Clearing House, 1980) is another famous collection of poems.
Life Sings (1983) deals with hunger and famine, the causes of man’s moral disorder.
Dispossessed Nests (1986) recounts the wailings of the country.
Burden of Waves and Fruit (1988) is the amalgamation of hunger, pain, death, time, and hypocrisy.
Temple (1989), The Whiteness of Bones (1992), Shadow Space (1997), Bare Face (2000), Random Descent (2006), and Land (2013) are some of his other famous volumes.
The Green Gardner is his collection of short stories.
Title of Selected Poems
- Dawn at Puri
- Listening to a Prayer
- Indian Summer
- Thought of the Future
- Orissa Landscapes
- The Ruins
- Hunger
- A Missing Person
- The Morning, Stones
Amitav Ghosh
(born 11 July 1956)
Amitav Ghosh is an Indian writer, best known for his English language historical fiction. He won the 54th Jnanpith award in 2018, India’s highest literary honor.
He has also written non-fiction works discussing topics such as colonialism and climate change.
He was a print journalist with The Indian Express during the Emergency and observed minutely the changing political and social condition in India.
His debut novel The Circle of Reason (1986) tells the story of Nachiketa or Alu and his uncle Balaram.
The Shadow Lines (1988) is split into two parts (Going Away and Coming Home). The protagonist of the novel is Tridib (a boy).
The Calcutta Chromosome (1995) is based on the life of the Nobel Prize-winning scientist, Sir Ronald Ross, who did a breakthrough research on Malaria in 1989.
The Glass Palace (2000) is the story of a young orphaned Indian boy, Rajkumar, and the Burmese royal family. It has been divided into seven parts.
Sea of Poppies (2008) is the first book in the Ibis trilogy, River of Smoke (2011) is the second, and Flood of Fire (2015) is the third and final volume.
Gun Island (2019) deals with two of the biggest issues of the current moment - Climate change and Human Migration.
Non-Fiction Writing
- In an Antique Land
- Countdown
- The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable
- Dancing in Cambodia and At Large in Burma (Anthology)
- The Imam and the Indian (A large collection of essays on different themes)
Awards
- Sahitya Akademi Award for The Shadow Lines - 1989
Manju Kapur
(born in Amritsar)
Manju Kapur is an Indian Punjabi novelist. Her first novel, Difficult Daughters, won the 1999 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.
Her Major Works
- Difficult Daughters
- A Married Woman
- Home
- The Immigrant
- Custody
- Shaping the World
- Brothers
Arundhati Roy
(born 24 November 1961)
Suzanna Arundhati Roy is an Indian author best known for her novel The God of Small Things (1997), which won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997 and became the best-selling book by a non-expatriate Indian author.
She is also a political activist involved in human rights and environmental causes.
Roy began writing her first novel, The God of Small Things, in 1992 and completed it in 1996. The book is semi-autobiographical and a major part captures her childhood experiences in Aymanam.
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017) takes us on a journey from Old Delhi to Kashmir and beyond, where war is peace and peace is war.
Non-Fiction
Roy’s subsequent literary output consisted mainly of politically oriented non-fiction. She published several books, including Power Politics (2001), War Talk (2003), and Public Power in the Age of Empire (2004).
In January 2004, she was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for her collection of essays on contemporary issues, The Algebra of Infinite Justice (2002), but she declined to accept it.
She has written a television serial, The Banyan Tree.
Her essay “Cost of Living” focuses on the Narmada valley, home to many people of minority tribes.