Indian Writing In English example essay topic

Indian writing in English Raja Ram mohan Ray was the first Indian to effectively express himself in black and white through English though he was initiated to the language when he was in his teens. Thereafter Vivekananda showed his perfect masterly over the language through his evocative prose, which made the west sit up and take notice of the greatness of Hinduism. Tagore also had written some poems in English. However, there is no denying the fact that Indian writings in English were extremely few far between. Jawaharlal Nehru and M.K. Gandhi were also great masters of the English language. Nehru's Discovery of India, Glimpses of World History etc. are glaring testimony to not only his profound scholarship but also his absolute mastery over writing lucid prose in the foreign language.

Gandhi ji used the language in his writings with utmost precision and dexterity. They were followed by the great triumvirate of Anand-Rao-Narayan, who were the first to make Indian writing in English popular among a sizable section of our English educated people. They primarily wrote fiction and their elegant styles soon caught the imagination of the common reader. Indian writing in English had finally arrived in 1930's after a marginal existence for over a century. Mahatma Gandhi: Though Gandhi used his mother tongue, Gujarati, to write his famous autobiography, later translated into English by his secretary Maha dev Desai under the title The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1929), he used Hindi and English with masterly skill and use. As he lived through a eventful life among his people, who were attempting to liberate themselves from moral decadence, economic exploitation, and cultural subordination, Gandhi wrote, day and night, in and out of prisons, for his two journals, Young India and Harijan.

Rabindranath Tagore: The national awakening in Asia found its expression first in the Indian literature, and its for most representative writer was Tagore (1861-1941). Tagore was the first Asian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1913). Tagore represents a happy combination of the ancient Indian tradition and the new European consciousness. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for his slim volume of poems entitled Git anjali. Tagore gave Indian poetry a new type of lyric. Through his collection of stories entitled Gala Guchchha, running into three volumes, Tagore set the pace of the modern short story in India.

His famous novels, Gora and Gh are Bair e reflect the genius of a supreme visionary. In 1930's emerged the first major figures in the field of English literature in the shape of the "Big Three" of Indian fiction: Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao and R.K. Narayan. Mulk Raj Anand is the most westernized of the trio; Rao, while writing in English and using the genre of the novels has his roots in Sanskrit culture; Narayan's work occupies a middle ground between the approaches of his two illustrious contemporaries. Anand's reputation was first established by his first two novels, Untouchable (1935), which gives an account of "a day in life" of a sweeper, and Coolie (1936), which follows the fortunes of a peasant boy uprooted from the land. His trilogy The Village (1939), Across The Black Waters (1940) and The Sword and the Sickle (1942) is an epic account of the gradual growth of the protagonist's revolutionary consciousness which may be seen as a microcosm of India's movement towards an awareness of the need for independence. Raja Rao's first novel Kanthapura (1938) is his most straightforward.

It gives an account of how her village's revolt against a domineering plantation owner comes to be informed by the Gandhian ideal of nonviolence. Rao's major work The Serpent and the Rope (1960) is regarded by some Indian critics as the most important Indian novel in English to have appeared to date. Rao has also public hed the short novels The Cat and Shakespeare (1965) and Comrade Kirill ov (1976). Nir ad C. Chaudhary is being regarded as the most controversial of Indian writers in English. He emerged on the scene with his book The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian (1951). When he visited England, he recorded his experiences in A Passage to England (1959).

In The Continent of Circe (1965) he puts forward the thesis that the Aryan settlers of India became enfeebled by the climate of North India. He has also published To Live or not to Live (1970) and a second volume of autobiography, Thy Hand, Great Anarch (1987). R.K. Narayan's early novels include the trilogy Swami and Friends (1935), The Bachelor of Arts (1937) and The English Teacher (1945). The novels of his middle period represent his best works; these include Mr. Sam path (1949), The Financial Expert (1952), The Guide (1958), The Man Eater of Malgudi (1961) and The Sweet-Vendor (1967). They explore conflicts between traditional Hindu values and western incursions into the society. Narayan's more recent novels include The Painter of Signs (1976), A Tiger for Malgudi (1983) and Talkative Man (1986).

He has also published several volumes of short stories, including An Astrologer's Day (1947) and Lawley Road (1956). Vikram Seth's first novel, A Suitable Boy has made him the most hyped-up first-time novelist in the history of Indian literature. The Golden Gate, a novel in verse had hit the bestsellers lists in 1986-87. The Golden Gate was followed by three collections of verse: The Humble Administrator's Garden, All You Who Sleep Tonight and Beastly Tales From Here and There. Salman Rushdie won the 1981 Booker Prize for Midnight's Children (1981). Shame (1983) approaches political events in Pakistan.

He has also published Grim us (1975), a science fiction novel, and The Jaguar Smile (1987), a journal about war-torn Nicaragua and of course, the banned book - Satanic Verses. Anita Desai has written Fire in the Mountains (1977), Clear Light of Day (1980) and The Village by the Sea (1982), Cry the Peacock (1963), Bye-Bye Black Bird (1971) and In Custody (1984). Her subtle unostentatious prose and her sensitive evocation of the inner lives of her characters make her one of the finest talents at work in the Indian novel. Other Novelists The period around Independence provided Khushwant Singh and Manohar Malgonkar with the subject matter of their best novels: Singh's A Train to Pakistan (1956) and Malgonkar's A Bend in the Ganges (1964) deal with partition; Singh's I Shall Not Hear the Night angle (1959) is about the movements of a Sikh family in the Punjab in the uncertain period before partition and Malgonkar's The Princes (1963) a sympathetic account of the tragedy of a family who represents the local elite that ruled many 'native's tates during the Raj.

Kamala Markandya's novels, which include N ector in a Sieve (1954), A Handful of Rice (1966) and The Coffer Dams (1969) are mainly about rural and urban poverty and dispossession. Nay antara Sah gal, a niece of Nehru, writes about the Indian elite of today and yesterday. Her novels include This Time of Morning (1965), The Day in Shadow (1971), A Situation in New Delhi (1977), Rich Like Us (1985) and Plans For Departure (1986), she was winner of the Eurasian section of the 1987 Commonwealth Writer Prize. Arundhati Roy: Although she has written only one novel, she managed to gain international recognition as the popularity of her maiden novel, 'The God of Small things' transcended geographical boundaries and thereby made her presence feel among the contemporary literacy greats of the west. She also won tremendous critical acclaim for her use of the language and her lyrical and yet honest presentation of her life and times of a Kerala village which culminated with her winning the prestigious Booker Prize ($20,000), for her debut literacy venture.

Showa De: This queen of pulp fiction, she intelligently uses the very special Indian English or Hing lish in her racy, raunchy sensual novels. Though her works are of little literacy value but she has achieved more popularity than many of her contemporaries. She can be regarded as a trend settler in the genre of sensational novels, written, with the sole purpose of selling. Amitai Ghosh: He has carved a distinctive niche for himself with his profound works such as circle of reason, Calcutta chromosome, shadow lines etc. every work at his amply displays his penchant for inquisitiveness, serious research and diversity.