Indian Imagination

A Critical Study of Fiction, Autobiography and Poetry

The anthology comprising twenty two papers is an attempt to study the select representative writers and some canonical works from different perspectives like narrative, stylistic, ecocritical and thematic. The areas chosen are fiction particularly novel, poetry and autobiography. The fiction writers included in it are R.K.Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand, V.S.Naipaul, Anita Desai, Ruskin Bond and Saadat Hasan Manto. These synoptic studies are focused with a definite critical lens, for example Lacanian theory is applied to R.K.Narayan's novels and psycho narration is used for the study of Anita Desai's novels. Nine novels are taken up for in-depth evaluation; they are The White Tiger, The Inheritance of Loss, Interpreter of Maladies, A Beach Boy, The Foreigner, The Sun Behind the Cloud" Midnight's Children, The Girmitiya Saga and Azadi . In Autobiography Leila Seth's On Balance which is least explored is taken up for comprehensive assessment. In poetry Aurobindo, Tagore and Sarojini Naidu the Romantic trio with three different focal areas of interest are evaluated separately. Besides them Kamala Das and Agha Shahid Ali are comparatively studied to show how radical they are in their poetry. Two papers are on Jayant Mahapatra-one on Relationship and another on A Rain of Rites and one paper is devoted to the study R. Parthasarthy's Rough Passage. On the whole it gives space to emerging novelists besides revisiting the established writers. And it is hoped that it would prove useful for the students, readers and researchers of Indian English literature.