Chronologically arranged anthology of twentieth-century and contemporary writing from India and the Indian diaspora. Includes bibliographical references.
Contents:
"Pariah god" / From Boyhood days ; From Final poems. "Sickbed 21" ; "Recovery 4" / S. Sukirtharani. To Arthur Symons ; From a letter to Edmund Gosse ; To Rabindranath Tagore (1912) ; To Rabindranath Tagore (undated) / Sarojini Naidu -- "Two autobiographical sketches" / Premchand (Dhanpat Rai) -- From The autobiography of an unknown Indian. From "My birthplace" ; From "The English scene" ; From "The Englishman in the flesh" / Nirad C. Chaudhuri -- "The professor" ; "Name me a word" ; "Poetry" ; "The windy night" / Jibanananda Das -- From My days : a memoir / R.K. Narayan -- From "Pattumma's goat" / Vaikom Muhammad Basheer -- "Entering the literary word" / Raja Rao -- "Childhood memories" / Lalithambika Antherjanam -- "The signs" ; "Words and truths" ; "Three words to make a poem" ; "The revolving rock XVI" ; "The revolving rock XXV" / Agyeya (Sachchidananda Vatsayan) -- "My four-sided field" ; From "The world of birds" ; Acceptance speech for the 1968 Bahratiya Jnanpith Award / Umashankar Joshi -- "First letter to Uncle Sam" / Saadat Hasan Manto -- "We people" / Ismat Chugtai -- "To Waris Shah" ; From The revenue stamp. My sixteenth year ; A shadow / Amrita Pritam -- "Background, casually" ; "Poet, lover, birdwatcher" / Nissim Ezekiel -- "So many words, so many sounds" / Mahasweta Devi -- "Rejecting extinction" / Nayantara Sahgal -- "Beyond the stars" / Qurratulain Hyder -- From an autobiographical essay ; "Grandfather" ; "The abandoned British cemetery at Balasore" ; "Hunger" / Jayanta Mahapatra -- "Elements of composition" ; "Saturdays" ; From "Is there an Indian way of thinking? an informal essay" / A.K. Ramanujan -- "Returning to one's country" / Nirmal Verma -- "Why write?" ; "Upon my walls" ; "Epitaph ; From "Passage to America" / K. Ayyappa Paniker -- "From an undated sheet" ; From "Making love to a poem" / Arun Kolatkar -- From "Five decades of my writing" / U.R. Ananthamurthy -- From My story. "The bougainvillea" ; From "The P.E.N. Poetry Prize" ; "The old playhouse" ; From "An introduction" / Kamala Das -- "The decolonised muse (a personal statement)" / Keki Daruwalla -- "On being an Indian writer today" / Anita Desai -- From author's introduction to Three plays / Girish Karnad -- "In poetry" ; "Alphabets" ; Combustion ; "The year's first poem" ; "Broken home" ; From My life, my work / Nabaneeta Dev Sen -- "Being there : aspects of an Indian crisis" / Adil Jussawalla -- From "Squirrel" / Ambai (C.S. Lakshmi) -- From "Sinning in Mysore" / Paul Zacharia -- "Ghandi and poetry" ; "Stammer" ; "Burnt poems" ; "About poetry, about life" / K. Satchidanandan -- "Engraving a bison on stone" ; "Distance in statute miles" ; "Where will the next one come from" ; "Inscription" / Arvind Krishna Mehrotra -- "Imaginary homelands" / Salman Rushdie -- From "In search of evanescence" / Agha Shahid Ali -- "Approaching the organized harem of the octopus" ; "Mandakini Patil : a young prostitute, my intended collage" ; "The day she was gone" / Namdeo Dhasal -- From "Illiterate heart" ; "Crossroad" / Meena Alexander -- "A note on writing When dreams travel" / Githa Hariharan -- "My first fairy tale" / Vijay Seshadri -- From "The testimony of my grandfather's bookcase" / Amitav Ghosh -- "The poet with a forest fire inside" / Raghavan Atholi -- "The heroin sestina" ; "Malayalam's ghazal" ; "Spiritus mundi" / Jeet Thayil -- From "Like sculpting smoke : Arundhati Roy on fame, writing and India" / Arundhati Roy -- From "Interlude" / Amit Chaudhuri -- "Photons, graphite, blood" ; "Postcards" / Sudeep Sen -- "To the Welsh critic who doesn't find me identifiably Indian" ; First draft" / Arundhathi Subramaniam -- "Night beast" ; "Gigantic trees" ; "Untitled poem -- 2" ; "Pariah god" / S. Sukirtharani.
Summary:
A wide-ranging anthology of twentieth-century and contemporary writing from India and the Indian diaspora, curated by a distinguished scholar and poet. Featuring works by: Rabindranath Tagore, Sarojini Naidu, Premchand (Dhanpat Rai), Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Jibanananda Das, R. K. Narayan, Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, Raja Rao, Lalithambika Antherjanam, Agyeya (Sachchidananda Vatsayan), Umashankar Joshi, Saadat Hasan Manto, Ismat Chugtai, Amrita Pritam, Nissim Ezekiel, Mahasweta Devi, Nayantara Sahgal, Qurratulain Hyder, Jayanta Mahapatra, A. K. Ramanujan, Nirmal Verma, K. Ayyappa Paniker, Arun Kolatkar, U. R. Ananthamurthy, Kamala Das, Keki Daruwalla, Anita Desai, Girish Karnad, Nabaneeta Dev Sen, Adil Jussawalla, Ambai (C. S. Lakshmi), Paul Zacharia, K. Satchidanandan, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Salman Rushdie, Agha Shahid Ali, Namdeo Dhasal, Meena Alexander, Githa Hariharan, Vijay Seshadri, Amitav Ghosh, Raghavan Atholi, Jeet Thayil, Arundhati Roy, Amit Chaudhuri, Sudeep Sen, Arundhathi Subramaniam, S. Sukirtharani.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.