The Book Presents Raja Rao S Fic¬Tional World From A Refreshingly New Perspective. It Offers A Compre¬Hensive Account Of The Philosophi¬Cal Content In His Novels And Traces The Patterns Of Interaction Between Indian Metaphysical Tradition And The Culture Of The West. Dr. Dayal Shows How Raja Rao Has Developed His Vedantic Tantric Weltenschauung Through Absorption Of Similar Motifs Propounded By Certain Prominent Western Writers. The Study Of This Twin Insemination, Dealt In Depth And Subtlety, Makes A Significant Contribution To Indo-English Scho¬Larship.

Raja Rao Is An Erudite Scholar And An Ennobling Indian Novelist In English. His Sensibility Is Verily Indian And Presents A Unified Vision Of Life.His Creditable Career As A Novelist, Beginning With His First Novel Kanthapura (1938), Spans Over Almost More Than Half A Century. The Novel Is A Repository Of The Eventful Phases Of Indian S Struggle For Independence On Gandhian Lines. The Novel Merits The Distinction Of Being A Paradigmatic Text With The Deft Handling Of Myth And History.The Serpent And The Rope (1960) Renowned For Its Metaphysical Moorings Is A Compendium Of The Indian Composite Cultural Complexities Interacting As They Do With The Cross Cultural And Transactional Influences. The Text Holds Out Infinite Possibilities For The Intending Readers Set Out To Undertake A Serious Study.The Cat And Shakespeare (1965), Comrade Kirillov (1976) Are Intact With The Solidity Of An Inbuilt Structural Irony And Put Up An Amazing Picture, In An Amusing Manner, Of The Piquant Situation Obtaining All Over India In The Post-Independence Period, Soon After The Euphoria Of Independence Struggle Ceased To Exercise Its Influence.The Study Being Selective, Is Confined To Socio-Cultural Aspects Of Life As Reflected In The Above Texts.

Raja Rao, b. 1909, Indo-English novelist.

Raja Rao, one of the founding figures of Indian English literature, is re-examined in this comprehensive study of his fiction, which offers a fresh critical investigation into both his short stories and his novels. Powerfully contradicting the long-held perception of Raja Rao as a mere metaphysical writer and the true bard of quintessential Indianness, projected by many critics of the first Commonwealth generation over three decades, Stefano Mercanti posits Rao’s fiction in terms of its dialogic interaction – the ‘partnership’ – between Western and Eastern cultural traditions and demonstrates how it evolves during the course of his oeuvre on both the philosophical and the political level. The title, The Rose and the Lotus, signals the discursive terrain for a multicultural and interwoven evolution among different cultures, and points to the need for valuing relations of reciprocity rather than those of domination. Far from conveying univocal configurations and nationalistic stereotypes, Rao’s idea of India is seen as the epicentre of many echoes and dynamic resonances, both Western and Eastern, through which a distinct blend of Indian and European influences is more clearly unravelled. In this new critical re-appraisal, Mercanti draws on non-binary and inter/multi-disciplinary paradigms, thus signalling the complex transformations and multiple negotiations of a polyglot India caught between the cultural twilight of the modern and the traditional. The study also offers an invaluable linguistic analysis of Rao’s experiment with the English language, supplemented by a detailed glossary.

This anthology demonstrates the significance of Raja Rao’s writing in the broader spectrum of anti-colonial, postcolonial, and diasporic writing in the 20th century. In addition to highlighting Rao’s significant presence in Indian writing, the volume presents a range of previously unpublished material which contextualises Rao’s work within 20th-century modernist, postmodernist, and postcolonial trends. Exploring both his fictional and non-fictional works, Reading India in a Transnational Era engages with issues of subaltern agency and national belonging, authenticity, subjectivity, internationalism, multicultural politics, postcolonialism, and literary and cultural representation through language and translation. A literary volume that discusses gender and identity on both socio-political grounds, apart from dealing with Rao’s linguistic experimentations in a transnational era, will be of interest among scholars and researchers of English, postcolonial and world literature, cultural theory, and Asian studies.

The Book Presents A Collection Of Papers That Are Wide Ranging Not Only In The Choice Of Authors Two Of The Big Trio, R.K. Narayan And Raja Rao On The One Hand, And The Recent Ones Like Upamanyu Chatterjee And Manju Kapur On The Other, But Also In The Different Angles From Which These Novelists Have Been Discussed. It Includes A Much Talked About Author Like Arundhati Roy As Well As A Remarkable But Less Discussed Writer Like Ruskin Bond. It Consists Of Feminist Study As Well As Semiotic Study And Postmodern Reading.

This book considers the novels and short stories of Raja Rao in terms of the diasporic life of the author. Among the earliest of the 'second wave' Indian diaspora in the west, Raja Rao employs this unique perspective in most of his works. This is the hallmark of his writing. However, we also discuss the varied human and spiritual aspects of his work as reflecting his own life. His experiences as an Indian in a western world. But Raja Rao's writing also counts as postcolonial and postmodern far ahead of any others here or there.