Description:
What was once dismissed as 'the lingo of lesser breeds',
has over the years yielded Commonwealth literature of
compelling power and artistry. The essay in this volume
evaluate the various constituents of this literature,
notably Indian, African, Australian, West Indian and
Canadian, and posit how these constituents have come
to acquire the 'right of vision', and register the appreciation
of difference' with one another. In equal measure, this
study examines the responses made by the major Commonwealth
writers to the challenge of projecting their multi-lingual
and multi-cultural experiences through the medium of
English, and the extent to which their works have succeeded
in evoking the indigenous flavour of their lives and
lands in concert with their own idiom, rhythm, and symbols.
In Commonwealth writing, then, William Cowper's rose
is, as it were, crossed with his lily to produce Toru
Dutt's lotus, 'the queenliest flower that blows.' The
Ibo Achebe has given the lie to claims of the white
man's civilizing mission and Patrick White, influenced
by the homespun vision of M.K. Ghandhi, has written
novels of suffering and spiritual fibre. While the essay
unreservedly give credit where it is due, they are candidly
critical of what their author calls the inflated reputations
of V.S. Naipaul and Nirad Chaudhuri and the spurious
reputations of Salman Rushdie and Vikram Seth.
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Editor:
C.D. Narasimahaiah, educated at the Universities of
Mysore and Cambridge, was Professor of English at the
University of Mysore from 1950 to 1979. Reckefeller
Fellow at Princeton (1949-50) and Fulbright Visiting
Lecturer at Yale (1958-59), he was Visiting Professor
at several universities, including Leeds (U.K.), Texas
(U.S.A.), Queensland and Flinders (Australia). He is
currently Director, the Library Criterion Centre for
English Studies and Indigenous Arts, Dhvanyaloka, Mysore.
Pioneer of American Literature studies in India in the
fifties and sixties and of Commonwealth Literature studies
in the seventies, Professor Narasimhaiah has authored
numerous research articles and edited over a dozen books
published, among others, by Macmillan and Oxford University
Press. His major book-length studies include The Swan
and the Eagle, Jawaharlal Nehru, Raja Rao, Writer's
Gandhi, Moving Frontiers of English Studies in India,
and Indian Critical Sence : Controversial Essays. Professor
Narasimahaiah was elected (Global) Chairman, Association
for Commonwealth Literature (1974-77), and President,
All India English Teacher's Conference (989). Awarded
Padma Bhshan by the Government of India in the year
1990, he ranks among the most sensitive, bold, and distinguished
scholar-critics of India.
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