Description
Book SynopsisCosmopolitanism in the Indian English Novel argues that select novels by Indian writers in English largely present a kind of micro-cosmopolitanism that preserves nation as a primary site for social and cultural formation while opening it up to critique. During colonial times, local cultural expression wrestled with the global as represented by the systems of empire. The ideal subject or literary work was one that could happily inhabit both ends of the center-periphery in a kind of cosmopolitan space determined by imperial metropolitan and local elite cultures. As colonies liberated themselves, new national formations had to negotiate a mix of local identity, residual colonial traits, and new forces of global power. New and more complex cosmopolitan identities had to be discovered, and writers and texts reflecting these became correspondingly more problematic to assess, as old centralisms gave way to new networks of cultural control. This book contends that novels written in
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements – Introduction – Cosmopolitan Theory – Indian Writing in English – Nation and the Cosmopolitan Narration – Family and Indian English Fiction – Mobility and Indian English Fiction – Home Not So Sweet Home – Literary Prizes, Manumission, or Helotry – Conclusion – Index.
