The Indian novel in English became a global phenomenon with the publication of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight's Children in 1981 and since then has come to dominate the field of postcolonial writing in English. This course examines the developments in postcolonial Indian fiction in English from the 1980s to the present. We will discuss the work of some of the key authors, such as Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Arundhati Roy, Kiran Desai and Aravind Adiga, and explore such themes and issues as colonial legacy, postcolonial politics, narrating the nation, caste violence, religious conflicts, treatment of gender and globalisation. The examined novels will be set in their historical, political, social and cultural contexts, which allows us to consider a range of perspectives on contemporary India. We will also discuss the status of the English language in India as well as the position of Indian English novel as literature that is both celebrated – especially in the West, where it is the Indian English literature that is best known and representative of the voice of India – and contested – especially in India, because it is sometimes seen as inauthentic compared to Indian literature written in other Indian languages.

Assessment: class participation, a presentation and final essay