The 1980’s and after has created a typical post-modern anxiety with the advent of Salman Rushdie as an influential diaspora writer. This book is conceptualized around a series of topics like post-modern anxiety, identity, politics, national and self-definition, the problem of exile and diaspora, and an interest to examine the way Indian English literature has established itself and set up as a separate discipline. While the bright and brilliant promises about Indian English literature rejuvenate us, some pertinent questions hang above us related to our identity, historiography and the political and national affiliation of a writer. Does the absence of a national identity affect the tone of a creative writer and the mindset of his readers as well? Does the post-colonial space invite and initiate the Indian English writers and the diaspora writers to take their ‘self’ and ‘national identity’ as the metaphor of their creativity? How do they define and justify themselves? What do they mean by Indianness, nation and narration, women issues, subaltern conditions, nativism, post-colonialism, post-modernism, and essentialism? What are their literary and extra-literary concerns? Do they succeed in giving a clear image to the indigenous culture and the narrative traditions of India? What linguistic and stylistic innovations are being introduced by the post-colonial writers? This book is a humble attempt to point out some of these issues by the editor and the contributors. The present analytical study will prove an ideal reference book to students, researchers and teachers of Indian English literature.

Table of Contents:
1. Mind and Movement: Metamorphosis of Women in Bharati Mukherjee — Sumati Jha & Pashupati Jha 2. Reclaim of Identity: Poetry of A.K. Ramanujan, Sujata Bhatt and R. Parthasarathy — Niranjan Mohanty 3. The Poetry of T.V. Reddy: A Saga of Human Grief — D.C. Chambial 4. The God of Small Things: A Study of Dualistic Approach to Society — Veena Mohod 5. Realisation of Purusharthas (Prowess) in Girish Karnad’s The Fire and the Rain — Abha Dahibhate 6. Jayanta Mahapatra’s Poetic Journey from Life Signs to Burden of Waves and Fruit: The Echoes of a Bruised Presence — Chhayakanta Sarangi 7. The Wild Urge of a Man on Earth to Touch the Heaven: The Extra-Literary Vision of Mulk Raj Anand — Nandini Sahu 8. V.S. Naipaul’s India in Magic Seeds: A Close View of Post-Colonial Indian Society — Santwana Haldar 9. Alienation and Rootlessness in the Novels of Kamala Markandaya — S. John Peter Joseph 10. Kamala Das: The Voice Within — Piyas Chakrabarti 11. Samskara: Happiness of the Absurd — R.K. Bhushan 12. Anita Desai: Alienation in Voices in the City — Madhavi Lata Agrawal 13. Missed Mission: Naipaul’s Half a Life — Rajalakshmi Sathyananthan 14. The Universe and Truth Divine in the Poetry of Armando Menezes — Padmini Sahu 15. Bildungsroman: Shashi Deshpande’s Version in The Dark Holds No Terrors — P. Venugopalan 16. A Feministic Perspective on Nayantara Sahgal’s Novels — Sharachchandra Roy 17. Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide: A Post-Colonial Approach — Bhagabat Nayak 18. Colonial Encounter and Racial Discrimination in Mulk Raj Anand’s Two Leaves and a Bud and Bankim Chandra’s Anandamath — Sabita Tripathy Contributors