The Book : This comprehensive study of the 'makers' of Indian English Literature ranges from the sporadic but landmark voices of the nineteenth century to the spurting creativity in the post-Rushdie, contemporary scenario. The contributors, unswayed by the increasing threat of publisher - media offensive to appropriate the critical function, firmly adhere to the time-tested tradition of explorations. They interrogate inflated reputations, underscore unnoticed achievements, and probe the mush contested inadequacy of Indian English Poetry and the paucity of Indian English Drama. The literary discourse is largely focused on tradition and avant-garde, indigeneous roots and Western influences, colonial and post-colonial perspectives, and self-indentity and heterogeneity (even hybridity) in Indian English Writing. The volume also investigates the problematic of using the English language to filter and Indian experience, especially in terms of departures from Standard English constructions, semantic neologisms, nativization of the language, and cross-cultural significations. It scrutinizes the three alternative of transcreation, etymological use and transliteration for moulding the English language into an Indian cast. Despite an increasing number of 'unmaker's of Indian English in Indian society (as argued in the last essay), the book paradoxically posits how the Indian English Writing has come alive as a vibrant, autonomous constituent of contemporary international English.

The Contributors : C.D. Narasimhaiah, Mulk Raj Anand, Meenakshi Mukherjee, N. Eakambaram, Sudhakar Marathe, C.N. Srinath, G.S. Balarama Gupta, Shyamala A. Narayan, V.M. Madge, C.P. Ravichandra, K.C. Belliappa, C.N. Ramachandran, H.S. Shiva Prakash, P.K. Rajan, S. Ramaswamy, Hutoxi G. Wadia, Anjali Roy, A.S. Dasan, et al.

The 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.