BABU FICTIONS
Alienation in Contemporary Indian English Novels
Price: 795.00 INR
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ISBN:
9780195679038
Publication date:
22/08/2005
Paperback
424 pages
216x140mm
Price: 795.00 INR
We sell our titles through other companies
Disclaimer :You will be redirected to a third party website.The sole responsibility of supplies, condition of the product, availability of stock, date of delivery, mode of payment will be as promised by the said third party only. Prices and specifications may vary from the OUP India site.
ISBN:
9780195679038
Publication date:
22/08/2005
Paperback
424 pages
Part of Oxford India Paperbacks
Tabish Khair
This book offers a fresh perspective on Indian English fiction by examining it through a Marxian lens of alienation, rather than conventional postcolonial frameworks. It explores how English-language literature can represent voices of those who may not speak English, analyzing themes like class, caste, gender, and power through readings of authors such as Raja Rao, Anita Desai, R.K. Narayan, Salman Rushdie, and Amitav Ghosh. A valuable resource for students, critics, and general readers interested in literature and society.
Rights: World Rights
Tabish Khair
Description
This book successfully addresses Indian English fiction without trying to fit it into a 'postcolonial' mould. Working with a redefined, Marxian concept?that of alienation?Khair presents a reading of contemporary Indian English fiction in English that sets out to study whether it is possible to write in English about people who often speak little or no English.
Employing the concept of discourse and formulating class divisions in emblematic 'Babu-Coolie' terms, the book presents thorough?and at times surprising?readings of authors like Raja Rao, Anita Desai, R.K. Narayan, Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, and others. Chapters on specific writers are combined with essays on general themes like the industrial landscape, caste, and gender. Khair's concern with the issues of power and hegemony adds philosophical depth to his reading of literature as literature.
This book will be of interest to students and researchers of Indian English fiction, sociologists, literature critics, as well as general readers.
About the Author:
Tabish Khair (b. 1966) was educated mostly in Gaya, India, and is currently Associate Professor of English and Postcolonial Literature at Aarhus University, Denmark. He is the author of several publications, including the poetry collection Where Parallel Lines Meet (2000), containing poems that won the All India Poetry Prize, and a novel, The Bus Stopped (2004), which was shortlisted for the prestigious Encore Award. He has edited Amitav Ghosh: A Critical Companion (2004) and co-edited and introduced Other Routes: 1500 Years of African and Asian Travel Writing (2005).
Tabish Khair
Table of contents
Introduction
Problems of Narration
Contexts of Babu Fictions
Maps of Babu Fiction
The Rhetoric of Exile
A Cosmopolitan Identity: The Birthmakrs of Hybridity
Language: Problems of Dialogue and Mapping
II. Tensions in the Narrative
Caste: Teh Hiranyagarbha Syndrome
Teh Urban Landscape: Neighbourhoods, a Class Apart
Gender and Class: A Well-placed Displacement
III Ways of Narrating
The Indian and the Universal in Raja Rao: Making the World
R K Narayan: A View from the Window
V S Naipaul: Narrating from the Empty Centre
Rushdie's Recipe for Newness
The Example of Amitav Ghosh: 9Re0 Establishing Connections
Afterword: Conflictual Spaces
Appendices
Imperialism and Colonization
Aliens from Marx
Caste and Class
Bibliography
Index
Tabish Khair
Review
?? [an] intelligent and argumentative book on contemporary Indian English novels ??
?Michael Wood, London Review of Books
?Khair?s study is worlds away from the glossy Sunday supplements. He subjects writers and their works to a barrage of intellectual heavy artillery ? Khair writes about the intrinsic, strictly technical, problems of representation that confront Indian writers of English, ever in danger of sounding parodic or patronising about non-Babu Indians.?
?Alok Rai, Outlook
?? brilliant and insightful. ? [This book is] highly rewarding ??
?Makarand Paranjape, Gentleman
?Khair is successful in his bid ?to address Indian English texts without mutilating them to fit postcolonial paradigms?.?
?Meenakshi Mukherjee, former Professor, Delhi University
?? a highly nuanced study of Indian English fiction ? that takes as given the necessity to be alive to local realities as well as to the international ? Khair gives us interesting insights ? on Indian English novel ? writers and their works.?
?G.J.V. Prasad, Tehelka
?[The book has] an excellent, lucid introduction ? Khair must be lauded for his intent [to] ?examine Indian English fiction? ? beyond and above the currents of a fashionable post-colonialism.?
?Amrita Bhalla, Angles on the English-Speaking World
?? splendidly written, well researched, and balances theory and critical practice extremely well. The interweaving of literary and social motifs is also deftly accomplished.?
?Terry Eagleton, Warton Professor of English Literature, Oxford University
Tabish Khair
Description
This book successfully addresses Indian English fiction without trying to fit it into a 'postcolonial' mould. Working with a redefined, Marxian concept?that of alienation?Khair presents a reading of contemporary Indian English fiction in English that sets out to study whether it is possible to write in English about people who often speak little or no English.
Employing the concept of discourse and formulating class divisions in emblematic 'Babu-Coolie' terms, the book presents thorough?and at times surprising?readings of authors like Raja Rao, Anita Desai, R.K. Narayan, Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, and others. Chapters on specific writers are combined with essays on general themes like the industrial landscape, caste, and gender. Khair's concern with the issues of power and hegemony adds philosophical depth to his reading of literature as literature.
This book will be of interest to students and researchers of Indian English fiction, sociologists, literature critics, as well as general readers.
About the Author:
Tabish Khair (b. 1966) was educated mostly in Gaya, India, and is currently Associate Professor of English and Postcolonial Literature at Aarhus University, Denmark. He is the author of several publications, including the poetry collection Where Parallel Lines Meet (2000), containing poems that won the All India Poetry Prize, and a novel, The Bus Stopped (2004), which was shortlisted for the prestigious Encore Award. He has edited Amitav Ghosh: A Critical Companion (2004) and co-edited and introduced Other Routes: 1500 Years of African and Asian Travel Writing (2005).
Table of contents
Introduction
Problems of Narration
Contexts of Babu Fictions
Maps of Babu Fiction
The Rhetoric of Exile
A Cosmopolitan Identity: The Birthmakrs of Hybridity
Language: Problems of Dialogue and Mapping
II. Tensions in the Narrative
Caste: Teh Hiranyagarbha Syndrome
Teh Urban Landscape: Neighbourhoods, a Class Apart
Gender and Class: A Well-placed Displacement
III Ways of Narrating
The Indian and the Universal in Raja Rao: Making the World
R K Narayan: A View from the Window
V S Naipaul: Narrating from the Empty Centre
Rushdie's Recipe for Newness
The Example of Amitav Ghosh: 9Re0 Establishing Connections
Afterword: Conflictual Spaces
Appendices
Imperialism and Colonization
Aliens from Marx
Caste and Class
Bibliography
Index
E. P. Thompson
Hesiod, M. L. West
James George Frazer, Robert Fraser
Ketaki Kushari Dyson
Bruce King
Sigmund Freud, Anthea Bell, Ritchie Robertson
Priti Kumar Mitra
Meenakshi Mukherjee
Hilda David, Francis Jarman
