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read an interesting article published in THE TIMES OF INDIA on 20th Jan 2013:
HYDERABAD: Indian writings in English are phenomenally visible the world over and one of the primary reasons for the global acceptance was the "linguistic felicity" of authors from the country, said Bill Ashcroft, an acclaimed author, critic and a founding theorist of post-colonial studies.
While deliberating on works by Indian authors and how they are perceived by the west, during a panel discussion on 'Indian writing -- At home in the world?' on Day 2 of the Hyderabad Literary Festival, Ashcroft said what also played a key role was the "phenomenon" called Salman Rushdie.
Panelist Tabish Khair, the popular poet and writer from Bihar currently residing in Denmark, while admitting to the large-scale presence of Indian writings (in English) on the world literary space, argued that it was only the "big novels" that are read as "Indian literature" overseas.
"A metropolitan presence in the writing is required to get noticed," he said. Carrying his thought forward, the moderator of the session TVijay Kumar, a professor of English at Osmania University, pointed out how writings from small Indian towns too had started to pour in, but failed to make a mark in the world, because of the missing 'metropolis' character.
Earlier, tracing the evolution of Indian literature in English, noted Malayalam poet and essayist K Satchidanandan narrated how it all began with the works of European historians such as Albrecht Weber and Max Muller, among others, in the early 19th century. "Most of this literature, however, had several limitations," said Satchidanandan, further elaborating the reasons for it.
"These works only looked in to literature in Sanskrit. There was no mention of either Tamil literature or other works that existed from centuries ago," he added. The litterateur also expressed his concern on the way Indian literature was read by the west and whether at all it was done anthropologically.
The discussions during the one-hour session also revolved around the categorization of writings as "post and pre-colonial" and if it was time to move ahead. "Post-colonial discourse is only a way of reading. Also, it continuously transforms and adapts itself to changing times," argued Ashcroft, while Khair maintained that the term, to some extent, "blurred" the individual identity of all writers from that period.
HYDERABAD: Indian writings in English are phenomenally visible the world over and one of the primary reasons for the global acceptance was the "linguistic felicity" of authors from the country, said Bill Ashcroft, an acclaimed author, critic and a founding theorist of post-colonial studies.
While deliberating on works by Indian authors and how they are perceived by the west, during a panel discussion on 'Indian writing -- At home in the world?' on Day 2 of the Hyderabad Literary Festival, Ashcroft said what also played a key role was the "phenomenon" called Salman Rushdie.
Panelist Tabish Khair, the popular poet and writer from Bihar currently residing in Denmark, while admitting to the large-scale presence of Indian writings (in English) on the world literary space, argued that it was only the "big novels" that are read as "Indian literature" overseas.
"A metropolitan presence in the writing is required to get noticed," he said. Carrying his thought forward, the moderator of the session TVijay Kumar, a professor of English at Osmania University, pointed out how writings from small Indian towns too had started to pour in, but failed to make a mark in the world, because of the missing 'metropolis' character.
Earlier, tracing the evolution of Indian literature in English, noted Malayalam poet and essayist K Satchidanandan narrated how it all began with the works of European historians such as Albrecht Weber and Max Muller, among others, in the early 19th century. "Most of this literature, however, had several limitations," said Satchidanandan, further elaborating the reasons for it.
"These works only looked in to literature in Sanskrit. There was no mention of either Tamil literature or other works that existed from centuries ago," he added. The litterateur also expressed his concern on the way Indian literature was read by the west and whether at all it was done anthropologically.
The discussions during the one-hour session also revolved around the categorization of writings as "post and pre-colonial" and if it was time to move ahead. "Post-colonial discourse is only a way of reading. Also, it continuously transforms and adapts itself to changing times," argued Ashcroft, while Khair maintained that the term, to some extent, "blurred" the individual identity of all writers from that period.
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