Bhattacharya, S: Postcolonial Modernity and the Indian Novel

1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-3-030-37399-3
Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buch, Englisch, 280 Seiten, Format (B × H): 148 mm x 210 mm, Gewicht: 391 g

Reihe: New Comparisons in World Literature

This book argues that modernity in postcolonial India has been synonymous with catastrophe and crisis. Focusing on the literary works of the 1943 Bengal Famine, the 1967–72 Naxalbari Movement, and the 1975–77 Indian Emergency, it shows that there is a long-term, colonially-engineered agrarian crisis enabling these catastrophic events. Novelists such as Bhabani Bhattacharya, Mahasweta Devi, Salman Rushdie, Rohinton Mistry, Nabarun Bhattacharya, and Nayantara Sahgal, among others, have captured the relationship between the long-term crisis and the catastrophic aspects of the events through different aesthetic modalities within realism, ranging from analytical-affective, critical realist, quest modes to apparently non-realist ones such as metafictional, urban fantastic, magical realist, and others. These realist modalities are together read here as postcolonial catastrophic realism.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bhattacharya, Sourit

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturen sonstiger Sprachräume Indische & Dravidische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Postkoloniale Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Strömungen & Epochen
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Ch. 1: Modernity, Catastrophe, and Realism in the Postcolonial Indian Novel.- Ch. 2: Disaster and Realism: The Novels of the 1943 Bengal Famine.- Ch. 3: Interrogating the Naxalbari Movement: Mahasweta Devi’s Quest Novels.- Ch. 4: The Aftermath of the Naxalbari Movement: Nabarun Bhattacharya’s Urban Fantastic Tales.- Ch. 5: Writing the Indian Emergency: Magical and Critical Realism.- Ch. 6: Conclusion.

Über Autor(innen)

Sourit Bhattacharya is Lecturer in Postcolonial Studies at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. He is a co-editor of Nabarun Bhattacharya (2020) and Sanglap: Journal of Literary and Cultural Inquiry.