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English literature
has ceased to be circumscribed by the geographical constraints
of the little island of Britain, on whose terrain of imperialism
the sun did not set, once upon a time. Moreand qualitatively
betterliterary works are being contributed to the corpus of
World Literature by nations where English is not the native
language. The recognition of the essential contribution of
writers in English from non-native writers like Wole Soyinka,
Chinua Achebe from the African continent, apart from the kitty
of Commonwealth and Booker prizes collected by the Indian
writers like Kiran Desai and others, testifies to the artistic
excellence of this genre of writing in English. It is no longer
feasible to talk about English as one monolithic linguistic
mode. Now, we talk about `Englishes'. While we celebrate the
triumphs of our writersa majority of them are expatriates,
their roots hopelessly snappedthere are the members of the
lesser breed the writers in regional language literatures,
called `Bhasha Literatures'. The question as to who is truly
the representative of Indian culture, values and ethos, generates
considerable heat on both sides, not always accompanied by
illumination. While, it is true that the Indian English Literature
writers, most of whom live abroad and write in and for those
countries, undoubtedly develop a certain `inwardness' with
the language, they are cut off from the cultural springs of
their mother land and find it impossible to re-root themselves,
culturally. But the native Indian writers in the regional
languages suffer from a certain cultural insularity and miss
out on larger global awareness. A happy blend of the extensive
explorations of the former and the intensive `implorations'
of the latter is devoutly to be wished for, to project an
authentic portrait of India, with its charms, warts and all!
The colonial transactions arising from the interface of India
and Britain have not always been negative in their impact:
oriental lore and wisdom deeply influenced a romantic like
Shelley and the interactions have had a catalyzing effect
on social and political enlightenment of the Indian society,
whatever might have been the intentions of Macaulay and his
tribe.
In
the paper, "Shelley's Orientalia: Indian Elements in
His Poetry", Jalal Uddin Khan traces the impact of oriental
models of liberation and freedom on Shelley's concepts of
romantic individualism in works like Queen Mab and
Alastor. The author convincingly argues that Shelley's
vision of India is essentially `integrationist' as opposed
to the Victorian attitude of superciliousness in taking upon
themselves `white man's burden'. The impact was not mere stylistic
embellishment but a powerful instrument for assailing the
western political system. In the paper, "Critiquing Indian
English Literature as New National Literature", Bijay
Kumar Das shows that the bipolarization of Indian literature
into `Indian English Literature' and `Bhasha Literature' is
untenable as both derive from the common Indian experience
and go back to the Indian epics for plots and inspiration,
as for example, in the works of Girish Karnad.
Technological
innovations provide exciting fodder for creative fiction,
as was evident in the crop of science fiction, over the years,
commencing with the scary Frankenstein of Mary Shelley,
but have taken a queer turn in `wetware fiction'. In the paper,
"Wetware Fiction: Cyberpunk and the Ideologies of Posthuman
Bodies", Pramod K Nayar examines the ideologies implicit
in the representation of posthuman bodies in William Gibson's
Sprawl trilogy, Neuromancer, Count Zero and
Mona Lisa Overdrive. The author looks at the cyborg
families and the implications of ageing and the overturning
of traditional notions.
Fictional
images of Indian women are explored by two women contributors.
In the paper, "Narrative Discources on Purdah in
the Subcontinent", Asha S examines the sociological implications
of purdah, which was instituted as a protective device,
but eventually turned into an instrument of control and female
subjugation. The author has chosen for scrutiny three Muslim
noveliststwo female writers from India and Pakistan and a
male writerAttia Hossain, Ismat Chugthai and Nadeem Aslam
respectively. While analyzing the symbolic ramifications in
the texts, the author feels that the novelists have chosen
to dwell more on the restrictive negative dimension of the
system than on the protective aspect. In the paper, "R
K Narayan's `New Woman': A Feminist Perspective", Satyasree
Y discusses the emergence of `New Woman' in R K Narayan's
novels like The Dark Room, The Guide and finally
Grandmother's Tale. Even as early as 1938, the author
contends, Narayan was far ahead of his times in portraying
Savitri as an assertive woman who can stand up to her husband
and ensure education for her two daughters.
The
apprehensions that globalization will result in cultural homogenization
are sought to be set at rest by Lily Want, in the paper, "The
Paradox of Cultural Globalization: Deterritorialization or
Reterritorialization?", when she argues that globalization
will not involve loss of cultural diversity but will instead
lead to pluralistic notions of culture and identity, when
studied from postcolonial perspective. In the paper, "Myth:
A Linguistic Narrative in Maxine Hong Kingston",Tessy
Anthony C studies the novel The Fifth Book of Peace by
Maxine Hong Kingston, the Chinese immigrant novelist in America,
as an attempt to invest a cultural myth with global significance,
demonstrating how globalization and hybridity alter one's
perspective. In the paper, "Deconstuctiong Authority
in Dario Fo's Accidental Death of an Anarchist",
Srirupa Chatterjee analyzes Accidental Death of an Anarchist,
a play by Nobel Laureate Dari Fo, as a trenchant critique
of the politics of tyranny in fascist Italy, employing the
Italian tradition of medieval folk players through the use
of tropes like play-within-the play. The author shows that
Fo's avant-gardism lies in transcending the binary opposition
between communism and fascism and deconstructing all existing
political ideologies.
In
the book review, "Dynamics of Colonial Transactions",
S S Prabhakar Rao examines the impact of the prolonged
engagement between Britain and India, which led to a dialogic,
two-way process of colonial transactions. The relations between
the colonizer and the colonized were presented from a complex
postcolonial perspective, focusing on some of the lesser known
women playwrights like Hannah Cowley. The memoirs of maharanis,
the letters of Eliza Fay and Fanny Park's tourist diaries
bring out instances of desirable cultural intimacies, while,
J R Ackerley's Hindoo Holiday exposes the homoerotic
aberrations of the author and the native king. The collection,
the reviewer concludes, is marked by insightful analyzes of
crosscultural interactions between sensitive representatives
of India and Britain.
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S S Prabhakar Rao
Consulting Editor |
