Literary critic Bruce Kings' book explores writings of 8 Indian authors

Writings of eight Indian authors in English, their potrayal of modern India and what their works suggest about the country form the crux of a new book by noted literary critic Bruce King.

Rewriting India: Eight Writers is a journey into the literary worlds of Arun Kolatkar, KN Daruwalla, Amit Chaudhuri, Pankaj Mishra, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Tabish Khair, Susan Visvanathan, and Jeet Thayil, who epitomise the thematic shifts Indian literature has undergone since Independence.

King emphasises the importance of place, personal experience, and social contexts to these and many prominent writers as well as recent Indian writing. Responding to those who regard the literatures of the former colonies and dominions as continuing to write back against the British Empire, he explores how these modern Indian writers map the complexities and contradictions of a dynamic nation.

The book, published by Oxford University Press, examines writings of the eight authors after discussing what was unique about the modern Indian poets in English and their relationship to later prose writers "My generalisations are really conclusions that have come from reading the works of authors, and others. My main concern, however, is with the work of the eight authors rather than any specific theme, topic, or argument. This is not a history, it is mainly about the work of authors whose writing interests me and who, I feel, should interest the reader," says King.

The book begins with a chapter on Kolatkar, known for his poetic works The Boatride, Jejuri and Kala Ghoda Poems. According to King, Kolatkar created a body of poetry that honours and enjoys the sceptical here and now as opposed to the dogmatic, idealising, and ideological. "Kolatkar's poetry can be understood as a cultural statement that is also political. His is a poetry of reality, of places and people, of the variousness of life, of saying that the world is as it is, of colloquial language and the present, in contrast to the idealisation of traditions, their literature, ancient Indian languages, symbols of official Indian cultural nationalism, and the Hindu revivalist movement with its militant politics," he says. 

Daruwalla, says King, writes English as if it were prose in the poems, which gives the verse a contemporary feeling. King calls Chaudhuri a master of the miniature, the almost motionless, the unadventuresome life, the absence of vulgar posturing, and attention-seeking.

"Chaudhuri is concerned with writing that is true to the particularities of time and place in contrast to large generalised notions of India and the postcolonial" he says. Mishra's books, according to King, record his exploration of the world and how people have tried to find meaning and purpose. "It is a continuing story that as it repeats itself can seem predictable, but which moves on, enlarging its vision and territory as it seeks answers about the purpose of life through examples of people and societies."

The author says Chatterjee has an eye for the corrupt and the incongruities, an instinct for satire and the absurd. "He like bawdy sexual humour. He raises the problem that English is the de facto language of the elite, while most of the population have no common language although 'Hinglish' is becoming a possible patois."

King sees Khair as another instance of how Indian poets in English, by writing about specific places, shaped a modern Indian literature in contrast to the generalised India of earlier writers. "His early books of poetry have such concerns as awareness of social ? especially class and caste injustice, criticism of and nostalgia for the world of his childhood and early manhood, and consciousness that the English used by him and his friends was not used locally," he writes.

The fiction of Visvanathan, says King, is purposefully anti-autobiographical and is based on her sociological studies, stories she has been told, other fiction, and what she imagined during her travels. "Refraining from formulae of consciously Indian literature, her fiction avoids predictability, and that is part of its message, that life is an unpredictable process of change," she says.

The last writer to be featured in the book is Thayil. His densely packed verse is concerned with his own experience and his international life, says King.