Indian Genre Fiction

This volume maps the breadth and domain of genre literature in India across seven languages (Tamil, Urdu, Bangla, Hindi, Odia, Marathi and English) and nine genres for the first time. Over the last few decades, detective/crime fiction and especially science fiction/fantasy have slowly made their way into university curricula and consideration by literary critics in India and the West. However, there has been no substantial study of genre fiction in the Indian languages, least of all from a comparative perspective. This volume, with contributions from leading national and international scholars, addresses this lacuna in critical scholarship and provides an overview of diverse genre fictions. Using methods from literary analysis, book history and Indian aesthetic theories, the volume throws light on the variety of contexts in which genre literature is read, activated and used, from political debates surrounding national and regional identities to caste and class conflicts. It shows that Indian genre fiction (including pulp fiction, comics and graphic novels) transmutes across languages, time periods, in translation and through publication processes. While the book focuses on contemporary postcolonial genre literature production, it also draws connections to individual, centuries-long literary traditions of genre literature in the Indian subcontinent. Further, it traces contested hierarchies within these languages as well as current trends in genre fiction criticism. Lucid and comprehensive, this book will be of great interest to academics, students, practitioners, literary critics and historians in the fields of postcolonialism, genre studies, global genre fiction, media and popular culture, South Asian literature, Indian literature, detective fiction, science fiction, romance, crime fiction, horror, mythology, graphic novels, comparative literature and South Asian studies. It will also appeal to the informed general reader.

This book investigates fiction in English, written within, and published from India since 2000 in the genre of mythology-inspired fiction in doing so it introduces the term ‘Bharati Fantasy’. This volume is anchored in notions of the ‘weird’ and thus some time is spent understanding this term linguistically, historically (‘wyrd’) as well as philosophically and most significantly socio-culturally because ‘reception’ is a key theme to this book’s thesis. The book studies the interface of science, Hinduism and itihasa (a term often translated as ‘history’) within mythology-inspired fiction in English from India and these are specifically examined through the lens of two overarching interests: reader reception and the genre of weird fiction. The book considers Indian and non-Indian receptions to the body of mythology-inspired fiction, highlighting how English fiction from India has moved away from being identified as the traditional Indian postcolonial text. Furthermore, the book reveals broader findings in relation to identity and Indianness and India’s post-millennial society’s interest in portraying and projecting ideas of India through its ancient cultures, epic narratives and cultural (Hindu) figures.

The scholarly essays in this book open up experimental and novel spaces and genres beyond the traditional and the literary world of Indian Popular Fiction as it existed towards the end of the last millennium. They respond to the possibilities opened up by the technology-driven and internet-savvy reading and writing world of today. Contemporaneous and bold, most of the essays resonate with the racy and fast-paced milieu and social media space inhabited by today's youth. Combative in its drift, this book makes possible an attempt to disband hierarchies and dismantle categories that have engulfed the expansive landscape of Indian Popular Fiction for too long. It facilitates discussion on graphic novels, microfiction, popular-entertainment and political satire on television and celluloid, social media-driven romances existing in the domain of the 'real' rather than that of 'fantasy' and mythological readings against the backdrop of gender and politics. Aimed at facilitating further research by scholars and enthusiasts of Indian Popular Fiction, this book is also an ode to the current trends generated by social and internet media cosmos. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

This study draws from postcolonial theory, science fiction criticism, utopian studies, genre theory, Western and Indian philosophy and history to propose that Indian science fiction functions at the intersection of Indian and Western cultures. The author deploys a diachronic and comparative approach in examining the multilingual science fiction traditions of India to trace the overarching generic evolutions, which he complements with an analysis of specific patterns of hybridity in the genre’s formal and thematic elements – time, space, characters and the epistemologies that build the worlds in Indian science fiction. The work explores the larger patterns and connections visible despite the linguistic and cultural diversities of Indian science fiction traditions.

Reading New India is an insightful exploration of contemporary Indian writing in English. Exploring the work of such writers as Aravind Adiga (author of the Man-Booker Prize winning White Tiger), Usha K.R. and Taseer, the book looks at how the 'new' India has been recreated and defined in an English Language literature that is now reaching a global audience. The book describes how Indian fiction has moved beyond notions of 'postcolonial' writing to reflect an increasingly confident and diverse cultures. Reading New India covers such topics as: - Representation of the city: Mumbai and Bangalore - Chick Lit to Crick Lit - Call centre dramas and corporate lives - Crime novels and Bharati narratives - Graphic novels Including a chronological time-line of major social, cultural and political reforms, biographies of the major authors covered, further reading and a glossary of Hindi terms, this book is an essential guide for students of contemporary world literature and postcolonial writing.

This book investigates fiction in English, written within, and published from India since 2000 in the genre of mythology-inspired fiction in doing so it introduces the term ‘Bharati Fantasy’. This volume is anchored in notions of the ‘weird’ and thus some time is spent understanding this term linguistically, historically (‘wyrd’) as well as philosophically and most significantly socio-culturally because ‘reception’ is a key theme to this book’s thesis. The book studies the interface of science, Hinduism and itihasa (a term often translated as ‘history’) within mythology-inspired fiction in English from India and these are specifically examined through the lens of two overarching interests: reader reception and the genre of weird fiction. The book considers Indian and non-Indian receptions to the body of mythology-inspired fiction, highlighting how English fiction from India has moved away from being identified as the traditional Indian postcolonial text. Furthermore, the book reveals broader findings in relation to identity and Indianness and India’s post-millennial society’s interest in portraying and projecting ideas of India through its ancient cultures, epic narratives and cultural (Hindu) figures.

In this unparalleled collection of short stories, The HarperCollins Book of New Indian Fiction presents an absorbing view of one of the most fertile literary landscapes in the world. Traversing continents and orbits, styles and themes, in rich, original and frequently surprising ways, the stories testify to the range and depth of Indian writing in English. Variously lyric, satiric, tragic and fantastic, they are unified in their vigour and humanity. T The anthology features a rich assortment of voices from both new authors and established names including Abraham Verghese, Manju Kapur, Githa Hariharan and Amitava Kumar. With an insightful introduction by Khushwant Singh, one of India's foremost literary personalities, this is the definitive survey of a lively modern scene.

In this award-winning novel, Tharoor has masterfully recast the two-thousand-year-old epic, The Mahabharata, with fictional but highly recognizable events and characters from twentieth-century Indian politics. Nothing is sacred in this deliciously irreverent, witty, and deeply intelligent retelling of modern Indian history and the ancient Indian epic The Mahabharata. Alternately outrageous and instructive, hilarious and moving, it is a dazzling tapestry of prose and verse that satirically, but also poignantly, chronicles the struggle for Indian freedom and independence.