Sample Chapter

Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Selection, introduction and editorial matter © Om Prakash Dwivedi and
Lisa Lau 2014
Individual chapters © Contributors 2014
Foreword © Tabish Khair 2014
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2014 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978–1–137–43770–9
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the
country of origin.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Indian writing in English and the global literary market / edited by Om Prakash Dwivedi,
Assistant Professor, Taiz University, Yemen; Lisa Lau, Lecturer, Keele University, UK.
pages cm
Summary: ‘Indian Writing in English and the Global Literary Market delves into the
influences and pressures of the marketplace on this genre, contending that it has been
both a gatekeeper and a significant force in shaping the production and consumption
of this literature. As well as providing case studies of selected contemporary Indian
novels in English and comparing how diasporic authors fare compared to authors within
India, this volume also provides theoretical insights into the postcolonial framework in
which the global literary marketplace is embedded, and comments on the exoticization
and marketing strategies adopted as a result’—Provided by publisher.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–1–137–43770–9
(hardback)
1. Indic literature (English)—History and criticism. 2. Book industries and trade—
India. 3. Publishers and publishing—India. 4. Postcolonialism in literature.
5. Globalization in literature. I. Dwivedi, O. P. (Om Prakash) editor. II. Lau, Lisa, editor.
PR9485.2.I55 2014
820.9'954—dc23
2014025313
Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India.
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Contents
Foreword by Tabish Khair
vii
Acknowledgements
x
Notes on the Contributors
xi
Introduction: The Reception of Indian Writing
in English (IWE) in the Global Literary Market
Om Prakash Dwivedi and Lisa Lau
1
Part I Marketing Theory of IWE
1 Writing India Right: Indian Writing and
the Global Market
Vrinda Nabar
2 Indian Writing in English as Celebrity
Pramod K. Nayar
3 How Does It Feel to Be the Solution? Indians
and Indian Diaspora Fiction: Their Role in
the Marketplace and the University
Dorothy M. Figueira
4 Commodifying Culture: Language and Exoticism in IWE
Nivedita Majumdar
5 Indian Writing in the West: Imperialism,
Exoticism and Visibility
V. G. Julie Rajan
13
32
48
63
81
Part II Indian Women Writers
6 Of Saris and Spices: Marketing Paratexts
of Indian Women’s Fiction
Belén Martín-Lucas
7 Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss and
the Troubled Symbolic Production of a
Man Booker Prize Winner
Daniel Allington
v
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
99
119
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
vi
Contents
Part III Indian Men Writers
8 Global Goondas? Money, Crime and
Social Anxieties in Aravind Adiga’s Writings
Robbie B. H. Goh
143
9 In the Right Place at the Right Time:
A Tale of Two Brothers, Rohinton and Cyrus Mistry
Rochelle Almeida
164
10 ‘(Not) readily available’: Kiran Nagarkar
in the Global Market
Dirk Wiemann
180
Bibliography
198
Index
211
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Introduction: The Reception of
Indian Writing in English (IWE)
in the Global Literary Market
Om Prakash Dwivedi and Lisa Lau
Indian life is plural, garrulous, rambling, lacking a
fixed centre, and the Indian novel must be the same.1
Speaking at the 2014 Jaipur literary festival, British novelist Martin
Amis made a sweeping comment on the meteoric success of Indian
writing in English (IWE): ‘[T]he English novel was parochial in the
80s. Indian writers have given us the colour. We badly needed it.’2
Amis’s claim puts a questionmark on the whole issue of the UK’s
reception of IWE as, according to him, IWE was given a warm
welcome because of its ability to provide what Graham Huggan
has termed ‘exotic’ features and what Francesca Orsini discusses as
‘fantastical’ writings, rather than necessarily being welcomed for its
literary merit. Anis Shivani also makes a similar accusation against
IWE as it is disseminated in the USA when he says that ‘American
conglomerate publishing interests seem to be finding a ready supply of Indian novels in English that enact the commodification of
exoticized Orientalism in global capitalist exchange’.3 The same can
be applied to contemporary IWE, marketed and circulated throughout the world today. Lisa Lau rightly links this commodification of
IWE, catering to Western readers, to the adoption of re-Orientalist4
strategies. The situation in terms of the Western reception of IWE
has reached such a state that Tabish Khair even argues that ‘the best
thing that can happen to Indian writing in English today is if it runs
out of well-meaning British patronage’.5
Such has been the contentious nature of IWE that it has always
been plagued by vehement controversies. If the 1970s witnessed the
1
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
2 Indian Writing in English and the Global Literary Market
struggle for recognition in Indian writing between regional (vernacular)
languages and the English language, since the turn of the century the
genre has been enmeshed in issues of representation, authenticity
and reception in the global marketplace. IWE has achieved many
considerable successes ever since the publication of Salman Rushdie’s
Midnight’s Children, the 1981 Booker Prize winner, and eventual
Booker of Bookers. The implication of Midnight’s Children winning
the Booker was that it provided an impetus to Indian writers in
English (IWrE), who began to receive more attention in the global
literary market and were increasingly wooed by agents and publishers. However, if one looks at the pattern and framework of the
euphoric success of post-Rushdian IWE in the global literary market,
it becomes apparent that it is tendentiously marked by greater prominence being given to Indian diasporic writers than to those settled in
and writing from India.
Many major writers of IWE are settled abroad, either by choice or
by birth, and, as a result of the opportunity to have work published
and reviewed in the Global North and in world literary centres like
London and New York, some enjoy the wide distribution necessary
to achieve celebrity status. This privileging of diasporic writers over
those writing from within India in the project of writing and ‘imaging
India’ has always been a contentious issue, as the diasporic ideas
of India may be considerably different from those of writers living
within India; yet it is the diasporic version of India on which the
primary focus lies within Eurocentric scholarship and postcolonial
studies. In the context of postcolonial literature and the global
literary market, there has been a systematic overlooking of works
produced by India-based writers; in the current discourse on postcolonial IWE, India-based writers almost only appear as footnotes
to their diasporic counterparts. As Khair pertinently observes: ‘[P]ostcolonialism and diaspora: it is difficult to say, at least in the context
of Indian literatures in English, which is the evil twin and which
the good one.’6 This issue of the privileging and representation of
India by its diasporic writers is registered equally succinctly by Lau,
who argues that:
In contemporary IWE, it has sometimes been the case that who
is speaking (which in part depends on where they happen to be
located) matters more than what is spoken, and consequently,
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Introduction
3
what is eventually heard and made accessible to large audiences.7
(emphasis original)
The nature of capitalist forces exposes the ambiguity and complicity of the global market, which implies an even playing field, but
encourages and promotes the reverse. The depiction of ‘Dark India’
by writers like Amit Chaudhuri, Aravind Adiga, Jeet Thayil, Manil
Suri, Pankaj Mishra, Rohinton Mistry and Suketu Mehta, among
many others, and its proliferation and appropriation by capitalistbased globalizing forces have made this representation of the dark(er)
side of Indian culture a source of profit. One can make a case, then,
that due to the fixed rules of the so-called transnational publishing
industries, IWE has acquired the status of a desirable commodity and
a consumption item in the First World market, which may have to
distort itself or severely self-censor to remain desirable. Nabaneeta
Dev Sen, a prominent Bengali writer living in India, is critical and
wary of the distorting of Indian culture for commercial purposes.
She contends that ‘Indianness has become a commercial commodity which you can sell. … I feel that India and Indianness are being
exploited for commercial purposes. And it is being exploited by being
written with commerce in mind, with money in mind.’8 Here we
would like to stress that the present volume does not seek to point
the finger of accusation at Indian diasporic writers, but to look into
the marketing strategies adopted by them or on their behalf for selling their work in the global market.
It can be argued that the literary map of India is drawn for consumption and distribution by economic forces operating outside
India. Rushdie terms this sociology of India ‘Indias of the mind’
for, according to him and justifiably so, writers ‘create fictions, not
actual cities or villages, but invisible ones, imaginary homelands’.9
Diasporic IWrE are part of the ‘comprador intelligentsia’,10 to borrow
a term from Kwame Anthony Appiah, and are implicated too in the
forces of global marketing. These are the new cultural portrait painters of IWE who have the power to speak both of and for India – and,
even more importantly, to be heard, particularly outside India.
Without questioning their literary achievements, it may be surmised
that while these writers insist that they are not dancing to the tunes
of global marketing demands of production and consumption,
they can hardly be entirely deaf to these either. In fact, the cultural
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
4 Indian Writing in English and the Global Literary Market
production of postcolonial literature ‘exists only as evidence of
the Western fetishization of the rest of human experience, … the
reception of postcolonial text is always or only a kind of market
colonization’.11 It would appear, therefore, that IWE is still anchored
on an old colonial chestnut. More damaging still, it is the diasporic
representation of India that is being taught at various Western universities, judging by their curricula, while the works of India-based
writers have largely been disregarded and remain unknown and
unstudied in postcolonial literature courses.
By focusing on compromised ‘cultural production’, to use Pierre
Bourdieu’s term, and on the proliferation of contemporary IWE
in global academia, the present volume seeks to examine the relationship between IWE and its global marketing strategies. It pays
attention to the material conditions of the cultural production,
marketing and reception of contemporary IWE, and concomitantly exposes the serious drawbacks underpinning it by debating
the polemical role of literary markets and negotiations between
publisher and readership. The contributors to this volume question
the selective inclusion/exclusion, promotion/subjugation of a select
group of IWrE and the continuation of Eurocentric hegemony in the
global marketplace, as well as the impact and effects of such selected
representations.
About the book
This collection is divided into three parts, the first focusing on
broader theories of IWE and its marketing, and the subsequent two
focusing on case studies of novels by men and women IWrE. Part I’s
emphasis is strongly focused on the relationship between IWE and
the West, which is where the global marketplace for IWE is primarily
located.
In the first chapter, Vrinda Nabar makes the distinction between
‘Writing About India’ and merely ‘writing about India’, arguing that
diasporic Indian authors have been received by the First World as
India’s spokespeople. Where diasporic IWE has been critiqued by
Indians in India for errors in representation, Nabar argues that the critique has variously been received as stemming from ignorance, intolerance or sensitivity rooted in nativism. Nabar further argues that this
spotlight on diasporic writing and the complementary relative neglect
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Introduction
5
of writing from India is the continuation of European hegemony and
postcolonialism, which globalization has only reinforced.
Pramod Nayar concurs that some writers have been privileged over
others, and discusses the celebrification of IWrE, arguing that the
genre of IWE is a positional celebrity. Chapter 2 outlines the way in
which IWE’s celebritydom is linked to and reinforced by – and cannot be separated from – India’s iconicities, such as its beauty pageant
winners, its famous cricketers, its film industry, its diasporic population and yuppie workforce in the First World, and other elements
of the country’s soft power. The chapter points out that IWE is not
celebrated or well received in the First World merely because it serves
up exotic fare for Western consumption, but because as a genre in
a mutually reinforcing and convergent process, IWE and India both
acquire visibility as positional celebrities in the global literary scene.
The third chapter extends the argument of the privileging of diasporic
IWE from a different but associated angle. Dorothy Figueira argues that
diasporic Indians in the USA, with the complicity of its mainstream
society and its universities and academies, minoritize themselves in
order to associate themselves advantageously with groups that would
afford them special privileges, and to fulfil quotas. In the syllabus, some
American universities regard the exposure of students to multiculturalism via a single course and in a narrow manner as adequately meeting
the pedagogical mandate; they also see themselves as addressing institutional racism by studying minority authors, rather than actually hiring
more minority staff. Figueira contends that American universities only
engage with India in a limited way, and it is usually an engagement
with an India of the Indian immigrant imagination. She argues that
the diasporic Indian-American literature flatters this community and
reassures the mainstream American community, thus it continues to
be prioritized and to occupy a position of advantage and prominence.
The following chapters by Nivedita Majumdar and Julie Rajan
extend the discussion of the marketing and promotion of diasporic
IWrE. Chapter 4 deals with the thorny issue of exoticizing within IWE,
contending that benign exoticism is the result of the dissonance
or distance between IWrE and their subject matter, as well as the
result of authors writing IWE for the benefit of a small community
of readers similar in background and class to themselves. Majumdar
argues that exoticizing reflects the anxiety of authors to be authentic,
and further contends that it may signal their cultural connectedness.
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
6 Indian Writing in English and the Global Literary Market
Moreover, the desire of IWE to identify with the nation of India leads
to oversimplified ideological constructs within the literature. Continuing the discussion of the exoticizing of things Indian, Chapter 5
points out that since the days of the Raj, Britain had collected native
objects from India and objectivized those, exoticizing and thus
devaluing Indian peoples, cultures and spaces. Rajan draws a parallel between how Indian objects that fit imperial assumptions gained
currency in the past, and how today Indian writing that fits Western
expectations gains a higher valuation. This chapter contends that the
(Indian) translators and editors of Indian writing are powerful gatekeepers who can ‘other’ and distance the original authors, and who
have the power of selection and global (mostly Western) promotion
and distribution. These gatekeepers are one more interpretative layer
between authors and readers, and they not only interpret, but shape
and cull and market the body of IWE as they deem fit.
In Part II of this collection, the chapters consider the situation for
Indian women writers in English. Chapter 6 works on the premise that
Western readership influences the production, distribution and consumption of IWE, particularly that by women writers. In considering
what enhances a book’s marketability, Belen Martin-Lucas focuses on
paratextual elements, such as the titles of books by women IWrE, their
book covers and the utilization of authors as marketing tools, and
notes the exoticization and objectification of women deployed for
commercial purposes. The chapter concurs that there is an ongoing
eroticization of Indian culture, and that in the celebration of cultural
diversity in a neoliberal and developing economic context, inequalities and neo-Orientalist elements are masked.
The other chapter considering women IWrE turns our attention
to Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss, which Daniel Allington contends could be read as a critique of the complicity of elite Indians
in the exploitation of Indians in India and elsewhere. Chapter 7 asserts
that the Man Booker Prize firmly establishes the global supremacy of
the British literary institution and, irrespective of the nationalities of
its winners, promotes literary brands that are products of British cultural industries. Allington argues that the subalternization performed
by Desai’s novel lies not so much within the text as in the apparatus
supporting its publication and dissemination; that is to say, the wider
literary community, an imperial, postcolonial inheritance of loss and
subalternity imposed on the marginalized via such literary products.
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Introduction
7
Both chapters in Part II seem to agree in concluding that as far as
IWE by women is concerned, the global literary marketplace remains
hugely influenced by orientalist and colonialist elements, and, of
course, deeply parochial and patriarchal.
Part III extends the discussion of the positioning of writers and the
global literary marketplace by exploring men IWrE, with chapters
offering case studies of Aravind Adiga, the Mistry brothers and Kiran
Nargakar. Using Adiga’s writings for illustration, Robbie Goh raises a
discussion of crime fiction in IWE, arguing that unlike other genres of
crime fiction where the literature reinforces the triumphing of law and
order, bringing order, hope and comfort to individuals and societies,
IWE crime fiction reflects a society in which change in the depressingly corrupt Indian system is as unlikely as (moral) rectification. As
a result, Goh demonstrates that it is not the detective figure but the
criminal who takes centre stage in IWE, becoming the ironic figure in
India’s globalization dilemmas. The goonda figure points to the problems and social costs of India’s rapid socioeconomic development.
Chapter 8 concludes by pointing out that Adiga’s comments reveal his
awareness of the marketing of this genre, and the consequent need for
writers to jockey for position before a global readership.
Rochelle Almeida provides a case study of the literary life and successes (or otherwise) of the Mistry brothers, Rohinton and Cyrus,
in order to extrapolate the differences in reception experienced by
‘home’ writers and diasporic writers. Almeida’s argument is that even
mediocre work by diasporic writers tends to be better received and
publicized internationally than that of competent indigenous IWE.
Chapter 9 considers the reasons for this discriminatory publishing
climate. It concludes that Rohinton Mistry’s position in Canada
enables him to engage with controversy from the safety of distance,
and the paraphernalia of the West – talk shows, literary prizes and so
on – gives him a huge advantage over his brother Cyrus who lives in
India, bereft of this supporting paraphernalia, demonstrating that the
playing field for IWrE in India and in the West is far from a level one.
In the last chapter of this part, and not dissimilarly to Almeida’s
comparative study, Dirk Wiemann focuses on the case of the author
Kiran Nargakar, whose works have been published by the Indian
division of HarperCollins, but are not widely available in Western
literary marketplaces. Weimann points to the conspicuous neglect of
a writer of Nargakar’s calibre within the Anglophone world, noting
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
8 Indian Writing in English and the Global Literary Market
that this writer has been very well received in Germany, for instance.
Looking at the global literary space, Chapter 10 argues that India
lacks sufficient literary capital to position a writer as great – as evidenced by Nargakar’s experiences. Within the global marketplace
for IWE, there is a demand for a postcolonial middlebrow, or a world
readability, and the case study of Nargarkar’s work highlights the
contemporary constraints within the literary space of IWE.
The contributing authors to this collection have usefully opened
up discussion of the climate and conditions within the global literary
marketplace as far as IWE is concerned, siting their discussions within
the context of an India passing through rapid socioeconomic change
and development. Approaching from a range of angles and avoiding
reiterating the tired argument of IWE catering mainly for Western
consumption, these chapters demonstrate the continued postcolonial
legacy that dogs IWE and extends many inequalities in a range of ways
and situations. It is clear that there is also some degree of indignation
at the (occasionally hypocritical) commodification, even exploitation,
of the genre and its authors, and especially of the Indian culture, for
commercial purposes. These chapters usefully point to some of the
potholes and pitfalls within the global literary marketplace of IWE,
while acknowledging how far IWrE have come in a very short time,
and celebrating this even as they sound their notes of caution.
Notes
1. Francesca Orsini (2002) ‘India in the mirror of world fiction’, New Left
Review, 13(Jan–Feb): 75–88.
2. Martin Amis (2013) ‘Indian writers make English literature richer’,
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/indian-writers-make-english-literaturericher/141639-40-103.html (accessed 10 April 2014).
3. Anis Shivani (2006) ‘Indo-Anglian fiction: The new Orientalism’, Race &
Class, 47(4): 1–25.
4. See Lisa Lau (2009) ‘Re-Orientalism: The perpetration and development of
Orientalism by Orientals’, Modern Asian Studies, 43(2): 571–590.
5. Tabish Khair (2012) ‘In the shadow of the Empire’, India Today, June 1,
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/tabish-khair-on-indian-authors-indianwriting-in-english/1/198629.html (accessed 10 April 2014).
6. Tabish Khair (2011) ‘Foreword’, in Om Prakash Dwivedi (ed.), Literature of
the Indian Diaspora, New Delhi: Pencraft International, p. vii.
7. Lisa Lau and Ana Mendes (eds) (2011) Re-Orientalism and South Asian
Identity Politics: The Oriental Other Within, London: Routledge, p. 28.
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Introduction
9
8. Pavithra Narayanan (2013) ‘Transcending borders in publishing: The
example of Mallika Sengupta, Bengali woman writer’, in Adele Parker
and Stephenie Young (eds), Transnationalism and Resistance: Experience and
Experiment in Women’s Writing, New York: Rodopi, p. 267.
9. Salman Rushdie (1992) Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981–1991,
London: Penguin, p. 10.
10. Kwame Anthony Appiah (1995) ‘The postcolonial and the postmodern,’
in Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffins (eds), The Post-colonial
Studies Reader, London: Routledge, pp. 119–124.
11. Sarah Brouillette (2007) Postcolonial Writers and the Global Literary
Marketplace, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 24.
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Index
Achebe, Chinua, 172
Adiga, Aravind, 3, 7, 37, 43, 73, 74,
124, 143, 147, 149, 154, 155,
159–62, 167, 171, 182
Between the Assassinations, 143
Last Man in Tower, 143, 154, 155,
160, 161
The White Tiger, 74, 124, 143, 147,
149, 150, 152, 154, 155, 158,
160, 161, 171
affirmative Action Report, 49, 53
agrarian-feudal, 150
Ahmad, Aijaz, 41, 53
Ali, Monica, 125, 131
Brick Lane, 131
Ali, Samina, and Madras on Rainy
Day, 105
Ali, Tariq, 185
Alvarez, Julia, 166
Amis, Martin, 1
American publishing world, 166,
180
American universities, 5, 39, 48, 49,
50, 52, 53
Anand, Mulk Raj, 16, 72, 167
Untouchable, 72
Anand, S., 35, 36
Anglophone, 7, 40, 44, 120, 127,
183
Anglo-American, 184, 188, 191
Anglo-Indian literature, 22
anxiety of Indianness, 72
Appiah, Anthony Kwame, 3, 21
‘comprador intelligentsia’, 3
Aristotle, Poetics, 148
Aryans, 50, 51, 61
Aryan fable, 61
Aryan myth, 61
authenticity, 34–6, 63, 64, 71, 74,
75, 77, 102, 131, 134
Author-brand, 42, 43
Ayyar, Kanchana Krishna, and When
the Lotus Blooms, 103, 104
Badami, Anita Rau, 110, 111, 112
Can You Hear the Nightbird Call,
110, 112
The Hero’s Walk, 111
Tamarind Men, 110, 111
Baldwin, Shauna Singh, 84, 103,
104, 105, 106, 107, 112
The Selector of Souls, 106, 107,
112
What the Body Remembers, 84, 103,
104, 105, 106
banal globalism, 190
Bangalore, 151, 153, 166
Barnes, Julia, 124
The Sense of An Ending, 124
Basu, Latika, 69
Beckett, Samuel, 194
Benjamin, Walter, 88
Bhabha, Homi, 41
Bhagat, Chetan, 33, 34, 37
Bhalchandra, Nemade, 16
Bhattacharya, Bhabhani, 16
black Americans, 48, 49
Bollywood, 19, 38, 73
Bombay/Mumbai, 16, 19, 25, 48, 76,
109, 146, 155, 157, 159, 164,
165, 169, 171, 173–5, 186, 191
Booker, the, 2, 37, 92, 100, 110,
119–25, 130, 131, 166, 168,
172, 187
Bourdieu, Pierre, 4, 33, 119
Brennan, Timothy, 15, 18, 21
‘Third World Cosmoplitans’, 18
Brouillette, Sarah, 66, 119, 134, 190
Bruster, Douglas, 42
Burke, Edmund, 82
211
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
212
Index
Calcutta, 70, 146
Capitalism, 21, 66, 72, 101, 106,
107, 145, 146, 148, 149, 153,
155, 158
Casanova, Pascale, 183, 184, 185,
186, 187, 188, 191, 194
‘fabrication of difference’, 194
celebrity culture, 32–8
centre-margin, 13, 14, 16, 20
Chakraborty, Dipesh, 41
Chandra, Vikram, 35, 64, 65, 69, 76,
143, 146, 174
Sacred Games, 143, 146
Chandrahas, Choudhury, 189
Chauhan, Anuja, 34
Chaudhuri, Amit, 3, 64, 65, 71, 73
Chaudhuri, Nirad, 167
Christie, Agatha, 122
Churchill, Winston, 82
Coetzee, J.M., 41, 43
Collins, Wilkie, 144
commercialization of Asian women’s
diasporic fiction, 110–13
commercialization of literature, 44
commodification, 1, 8, 51, 74,
100, 150
commodity fetishism, 66
Commonwealth Prize, 44, 84, 104
Conrad, Joseph, 145
Heart of Darkness, 145
consumable India, 191
consumerism, 13, 127
Coombes, Annie, E., 24
Cooper, Fredrick, 41
crime fiction, 143, 146, 147
cultural capital, 44, 190, 195
cultural production, 3, 4, 33, 34, 41,
44, 45, 119, 146
Dalit writing, 41
Dalvi, Jaywant, 16
Dalrymple, William, 14
Danielewski, Mark, 184
Dante, 54
dark India, 3, 73, 74, 154, 160
Datta, Jyotirmoy, 70
Delhi, 19, 39, 146, 153, 157, 176, 192
DeLillo, Don, 185
Derrida, Jacques, 42
Desai, Anita, 100, 130
Desai, Kiran, 35, 37, 43, 73, 74,
119, 122, 123, 125–35, 171, 182
Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard,
108, 125, 129
The Inheritance of Loss, 74, 119,
123, 124, 125, 126, 128, 129,
130, 133, 134, 171
Devi, Mahasweta, 27, 86, 88, 89,
90, 93
Breast Stories, 86, 90, 93
Dhasal, Namdeo, 16
Dibdin, Michael, 147
Dickens, Charles, 144
Dirlik, Arif, 41
Divakaruni, Chitra Banerji, 25, 26,
27, 55, 57, 58, 59, 73, 84, 85
Arranged Marriage, 57
The Mistress of Spices, 25, 26, 27,
84, 85, 108
Palace of Illusions, 27
Queen of Dreams, 26, 27
Dean Mahomed, vii, vii
des-pardes, 17, 18, 27
Deshpande, Aniradh, 187
Deshpande, Shashi, 34, 100, 166,
168, 171, 177
Devi, Phoolan, 148
Doyle, Arthur Conan, 144, 145, 146
Dublin Literary Award, 84
Du Bois, W.E.B., 48
English, James, F., 121
eurocentric hegemony, 4
eurocentric scholarship, 2
Exoticism, 1, 35, 59, 63, 64–7, 69,
71–5, 77, 81, 87, 91, 107, 194
exotic East, 15
exotic Otherness, 108
Fanon, Frantz, 41, 77
Fanu Le, Sheridan, 144
Farrukhi, Asif Aslam, 91
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Index
Fazio, A. Helen, 83
Figueira, Dorothy M., 48
Otherwise Occupied, 48
First World Market, 3
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 172
Fleming, Ian, 122
Forster, E.M., and A Passage to India,
22
Frankfurt, 185
French, Patrick, 14, 17
Friedman, Thomas, 161
Frow, John, 42
Gadekar, Reeti, and Bottom of
the Heap, 147
Gandhi, Indira, 148, 172
Gandhi, M.K., 68
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., 41
Gaulle, de Charles, 19
German Order of Merit, 193
Ghosh, Amitav, 44, 110, 147
The Circle of Reason, 147
The Hungary Tide, 110
Gilroy, Paul, 20, 26
Giridhardas, Anand, 14, 16, 17
India Calling: An Intimate Portrait
of a Nation’s Remaking, 14
global capitalist, 1, 64
global cultural economy, 39, 119,
188
global disciplinary/theoretical shift,
41
global goonda, 143, 154, 162
global literary scene, 39
global markets, 2, 3,4, 8, 13, 23, 28,
99, 182, 183, 185, 189
global literary marketplace, 2, 7, 37
global readership, 7, 71, 154, 160
global North, 2
global South, 40, 71, 81, 83, 84, 94,
143
globalization-as-Disneyfication, 185
Goethe, 54
Greenwich meridian of literature,
184, 187
Grewal, Inderpal, 52
213
Guha, Ramachanda, 32
Gupta, Charu, 41
Hameed, Yasmeen, 91
Hariharan, Githa, 100
Hay Literary Festival, 41
Hindutva, 51
Hosain, Attia, 168
Huggan, Graham, ix, 1, 37, 66
The Postcolonial Exotic, ix
hybridity, 53, 112, 124, 127
Hyderabad Literary Festival, 41
Hyland, M.J., 124
immigrant imaginarie, 55, 59
Indo chic, 100, 101, 109
Indian exotica, 194
Indian writers and their audience, 66
Indianness, 3, 24, 35, 59, 72, 154
Indo-Anglian literature, 46, 91, 101
Isaacs, Harold, 50
Iyenger, Masti, 70
Jaffrey, Madhur, and Climbing the
Mango Tree, 110
Jaipur Literary Festival, 1, 41, 42, 43
James, Henry, and The Turn of
The Screw, 144
Jana Aranya (film), 20
Jha, Raj Kamal, 32
Jiwani, Yasmin, 103, 108
Joseph, Manu, and Serious Men, 36
Kalidas, 54
Khair, Tabish, 1, 2
Kiberd, Declan, 87
Kirchner, Bharti, and Shiva Dancing, 109
Knellwolf, Christa, 38
Kumar, Amitava, 185
Kuortti, Joel, 100
Lahiri, Jhumpa, 54, 55, 57, 58, 59,
84, 166
The Interpreter of Maladies, 58
The Lowland, 84
The Namesake, 58
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
214
Index
Lal, Purshottam, 70
Lau, Lisa, 1, 2, 74
Lawson, Alan, 18
literary agents, 33, 41, 167, 181
literary capital, 182, 183, 184,186,
187, 188, 191
literary festivals, 33, 41–3
London, 2, 15, 25, 39,122, 123, 145,
146, 167, 184, 185
Loomba, Ania, 15, 87
Lukmani, Yasmeen, 187
Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 23,
82
Madras, 105, 109
Majumdar, Amit, and
The Abundance, 85, 86
Malladi, Amulya, and Serving Crazy
with Curry, 108
The Mango Season, 108–9
Mandal Commission Report, 49
Marathi literature, 16
Markandaya, Kamala, 72, 100, 167
Nectar in a Sieve, 72, 108
marketing compulsions, 13, 63,
77
marketing India, 21
marketing strategies, 3,4, 81, 101,
176, 182
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia, 172
material conditions for the
production of the exotic, 65
Mehta, Deepa, 26
Water, 26, 27
Mehta, Suketu, 3, 182
Mendes, Ana Christina, 74
Mirza Abu Taleb Khan, vii, viii
Mishra, Pankaj, 3, 75, 76, 129, 130,
168
Mistry, Cyrus, 7, 164, 165, 169, 171,
173–8
Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer, 173,
176, 177
Doongaji House, 173, 174
The Legacy of Rage, 175
The Radiance of Ashes, 173, 175
Mistry, Rohinton, 3, 7, 84, 164, 165,
169–75, 177
Family Matters, 169, 172
A Fine Balance, 84, 169, 172
Such A Long Journey, 169, 171, 172
Swimming Lessons and Other Stories,
169
Tales From Firozsha Baag in India,
169, 170
Mitra, Shanoli, 27
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade, 83, 102,
103, 105
Mole, Tom, 32, 33, 39, 44
Moran, Joe, 41, 42
Moretti, Franco, 183, 194
and World literature, 194
Morrison, Toni, 37, 172
Mukherjee, Bharati, 24, 25, 26, 27,
55, 56, 57, 73, 76, 84, 100, 178
Desirable Daughters, 25, 26
Jasmine, 84
Middleman and other Stories, 56
Mukherjee, Meenakshi, 15, 18, 21,
24, 25, 35, 71, 72, 76, 187
Munich, 192
Murthy, U.R. Anantha, 16
myth of the diaspora India, 60–1
Nagarkar, Kiran, ix, 7, 180–3, 186–9,
191–5
Cuckold, 180, 181, 186, 187,
189
The Extras, 181, 191, 192
God’s Little Soldier, 181, 193
Ravan & Eddie, 180, 181, 189, 191,
192, 194
Naidu, Sarojini, 69
Naik, M.K., 22
Naipaul, V.S., 16, 17
India: A Million Mutinies Now, 16
Nair, Janaki, 41
Nair, Vijay, 166, 167
Narayan, Uma, 84
Narayan, R.K., 72, 168
Narayanan, Pavithra, 35, 37, 39, 40
Narmada movement, 43
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Index
National Book Critics Circle Award,
130
Navayana, 41
Nehru, Jawaharlal, 67, 68
new criticism, 129
neoliberalism, 70, 100, 108
neo-Orientalism, 26, 73, 103, 112,
113
new Orientalism, 101
New York, 2, 15, 24, 54, 122, 126,
127, 129, 162, 184, 185
non-Anglophone market, 186
NRIs, 22, 150, 154, 159, 161, 162
Ommundsen, Wenche, 42
oriental backwardness, 24
oriental India, 102
Orientalism, 1, 14, 16, 23, 24, 40
Orsini, Francesca, 2
othering, 37, 50, 55
Padma Bhusan Award, 92
Padnamabhan, Manjula, 186
Pamuk, Orhan, 41
Paranjape, Makarand, 22, 39, 186,
188
Paris, 184, 185
PEN/Hemingway Award, 105
Pidgin Hindi, 134
Pinter, Harold, 44
Poe, Edgar Allan, 144, 148
positional celebrity, 37
post-9/11, 19, 103
postcolonial middlebrow, 8,188,
189, 190, 191, 194
postmodern capitalism, 186
Pradhan, Monica, and
The Hindi-Bindi Club, 109, 110
Premchand, Munshi, 16
Prasad, Chandrabhan, 35
Prashad, Vijay, 48
production and consumption, 3
Pulitzer Prize, 187
Rajan, Balchandran, 70
Rajan, V.G. Julie, 83
215
Rajen, Rajeswari Sundar, 35
Rajghatta, Chidanand, 19
Rao, Raja, 34, 72
Kanthapura, 34
The Serpent and the Rope, 72
Ray, Satyajit, 20, 21,146
reader/consumer, 190
real India, 14, 19, 74, 102
Robertson, Peter, 85
Roy, Arundhati, 32–4, 37–9, 42–4,
84, 100, 110, 111, 167–9, 171,
182
The God of Small Things, 32, 43,
84, 110, 168, 171
Rushdie, Salman, 2, 3, 16, 17, 18,
22–4, 27, 28, 33, 35, 37, 38, 39,
42–4, 75, 76, 84, 86, 90–4, 120,
121, 122, 124, 127, 128, 134,
168, 170, 181
Imaginary Homelands, 24, 170
Joseph Anton, 168
Midnight’s Children, 2, 75, 84,
92,121, 125, 168, 182
Mirrorwork: 50 Years of Indian
Writing (1947–1997), 86, 90, 92
The Moor’s Last Sigh, 43
The Satanic Verses, 18, 124
Ryan, Richard, 85
Sadana, Rashmi, 125
Safire, William, 48
Sahgal, Nayantara, 34, 167
Sahgal, Tara, 175
Sahitya Akademi Award, The, 181, 186
Said, Edward, and Orientalism, 23,
24, 40
Sangari, Kumkum, 125
Scott, Paul, and The Raj Quartet, 22
self-exoticizing, 188
Sen, Nabaneeta Dev, 3
Seth, Vikram, 32, 84, 182
A Suitable Boy, 84
Shakespeare, William, 40, 42
Shanghai, 156, 159, 162
Sharp, P. Joanne, 15, 16, 23
Shelley, Mary, and Frankenstein, 152
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9
216
Index
Shivani, Anis, 1, 73, 101, 106
Shriver, Lionel, 130
Sidhwa, Bapsi, 84, 85
Cracking India, 84, 85
Silverstein, Michael, 88
Singh, Khushwant, 72, 192
I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale, 72
Sivanandan, Ambalavaner, 63, 77
When Memory Dies, 63
slum tourism, 74
Smith, Zadie, 125
Spillers, Hortense, 41
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorti, 27, 41,
86, 88, 90, 92, 93, 103, 195
In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural
Politics, 92
The Post-Colonial Critic: Interviews,
Strategies, Dialogues, 92
Selected Subaltern Studies, 92
‘transnational literacy’, 195
Squires, Claire, 121
Srivastava, Sanjay, 41
Steinbeck, John, 172
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 144
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 144, 145
Olalla, 144
Sundaresan, Indu, 109, 110, 111
Shadow Princess, 109
The Splendour of Silence, 109
The Twentieth Wife, 109
Surve, Narayan, 16
Stoker, Bram, 144
Stoler, Ann, 41
Strongman, Luke, 121
Suleri, Sara, 82
Suri, Manil, 3, 73, 84, 174
The Death of Vishnu, 73, 84
Swarup, Vikas, 73, 143
Q & A, 143
Six Suspects, 143
Syal, Meera, 48
Tejpal, Tarun J., and The Story of
My Assassination, 143, 147
Tendulkar, Sachin, 38
Thackeray, Bal, 171
Thayil, Jeet, and Narcopolis, 3, 143, 147
Thomas, Nicholas, 41
Tiffin, Chris, 18
Tolstoy, Leo, 60
Toor, Sadia, 100, 101
Toronto, 164, 169, 170
transnational market, 183
transnational media coverage, 38
Tripathi, Amish, 34
Twitchwell, John, 42
Updike, John, 168
US academe, 48–50
US market, 185
victim narrative, 182
Vidal, Gore, 44
Vedas, The, 61
vernacular Indian writing, 86–7, 90,
92–4
Walcott, Derek, 37
Walker, Janet, 83
Weisel, Eli, 172
West, Elizabeth, 90, 93
western audience, 34, 90, 92, 93, 99,
105, 110, 170, 190
western-based and western trained, 61
western consumption, 5, 37, 125
western consumer, 91, 92, 108
western fetishization, 4
western literary judgements, 187
western market, 7, 65, 74, 76, 81,
84, 85, 86, 87, 92, 99, 100, 112
western peer-reviewing, 39
western publisher, 39, 101, 120, 165,
168
western readership, 23, 101, 103,
113, 108, 125, 129
western universities, 4
Wilde, Oscar, 144
Picture of Dorian Gray, 144, 145
Winfrey, Oprah, 164, 172, 177
world-readability, 189
xenophobic nationalism, 76
Young, Robert, 99
Copyrighted matrial – 978–1–137–43770–9

Download Report