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SOUTH ASIAN PARTITION FICTION IN ENGLISH

From Khushwant Singh to Amitav Ghosh (2010) - ISBN: 978 90 8964 245 5

South Asian Partition Fiction in English: From Khushwant Singh to Amitav Ghosh explores a significant cross-section of South Asian fiction in English written on the theme of Partition from the mid-1950s to the late 1980s, and shows how the Partition novel in English traverses a very interesting trajectory during this period – from just ‘reporting’ the cataclysmic event to theorizing about it.

The six novels selected for study (Train to Pakistan, A Bend in the Ganges, Ice-Candy-Man, Clear Light of Day, Midnight’s Children, and The Shadow Lines) show that, essentially, three factors shape the contours and determine the thrust of the narratives – the time in which the novelists are writing; the value they attach to women as subjects of this traumatic history; and the way they perceive the concept of the nation.

“Roy’s knowledge of the field of her investigation is comprehensive and detailed, and her textual analysis is lucid and penetrating.”

Review by Shirley Chew, Professor Emerita, University of Leeds
In English Studies, 94 (2), 2013, pp. 247-248.

Second BOOK RELEASE in Kolkata, 3 January 2011. This event was held at the historic Jorasanko Thakurbari campus of Rabindra Bharati University (RBU). Seen here with me is Prof. Subir Dhar, Chair, Dept. of English – who hosted the day-long seminar on Partition that accompanied the book release.

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WRITING INDIA ANEW

Indian English Fiction 2000-2010 (2013) - ISBN: 9789089645333

An assessment of twenty-first-century Indian-English fiction, Writing India Anew features fifteen essays by some of the most prominent scholars in the field and explores a range of themes, including the remapping of mythology and history, the reassessment of globalized India, and technical experimentation in the epic, science fiction, and the graphic novel.

Ultimately, the contributors to this volume contend that the current body of work in Indian-English fiction is so varied and vibrant that it can no longer be dismissed as derivative or dispossessed, or even as mere postcolonial “writing back” or compensatory national allegory.

With Prof. Krishna Sen – my former teacher and co-editor of Writing India Anew – at the joint AAS/ ICAS Conference held in Honolulu, Hawai’i, on 1 April 2011. WIA grew out of a panel I had organized there.

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Gariahat Junction

My maiden collection of shorts, Gariahat Junction, was published in 2020 by Kitaab International Singapore. It is a collection of nine short stories, of contemporary Indian women who have reached a critical juncture in their lives. Set primarily in post liberalized, post-millennial Kolkata, it mostly explores the lives of middle-class Bengali women in or from the city.