After a bomb blast rips through Sikandar Chowk Park, Allahabad, killing 57 people, a journalist pieces together the lives of 11 of the dead. The author crafts a witty tale, which addresses contemporary issues of communal and caste prejudices, bigotry and faith, forgiveness and redemption.

Preface Contributors 1. Narrative Strategies and the Invisible inNeelum Saran Gour's Sikandar Chowk Park:Reconstructing Identities and (Inter- )Religious Confrontation - Ludmila Vol2. From The Sandal Trees to Facing the Mirror:A Herstorical Over-view of Same-SexLove in India - Ana García-Arroyo3. Literature Still Matters! The Namesake: Woman Reads Woman- Prem Srivastava4. The Celebration of Acculturation inMonica Ali's Brick Lane - Leela Kanal5. A Socio-Cultural Feminist Critique ofInside the Haveli within the Frame ofthe Marginal - Vaishali Naik6. Reason and Rebellion in Feminism: ShashiDeshpa.

Today, Indian writing in English is a fi eld of study that cannot be overlooked. Whereas at the turn of the 20th century, writers from India who chose to write in English were either unheeded or underrated, with time the literary world has been forced to recognize and accept their contribution to the corpus of world literatures in English. Showcasing the burgeoning field of Indian English writing, this encyclopedia documents the poets, novelists, essayists, and dramatists of Indian origin since the pre-independence era and their dedicated works. Written by internationally recognized scholars, this comprehensive reference book explores the history and development of Indian writers, their major contributions, and the critical reception accorded to them. The Routledge Encyclopedia of Indian Writing in English will be a valuable resource to students, teachers, and academics navigating the vast area of contemporary world literature.

Indian writers of English such as G. V. Desani, Salman Rushdie, Amit Chaudhuri, Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Seth, Allan Sealy, Shashi Tharoor, Arundhati Roy, Vikram Chandra and Jhumpa Lahiri have taken the potentialities of the novel form to new heights. Against the background of the genre’s macro-history, this study attempts to explain the stunning vitality, colourful diversity, and the outstanding but sometimes controversial success of postcolonial Indian novels in the light of ongoing debates in postcolonial studies. It analyses the warp and woof of the novelistic text through a cross-sectional scrutiny of the issues of democracy, the poetics of space, the times of empire, nation and globalization, self-writing in the auto/meta/docu-fictional modes, the musical, pictorial, cinematic and culinary intertextualities that run through this hyperpalimpsestic practice and the politics of gender, caste and language that gives it an inimitable stamp. This concise and readable survey gives us intimations of a truly world literature as imagined by Francophone writers because the postcolonial Indian novel is a concrete illustration of how “language liberated from its exclusive pact with the nation can enter into a dialogue with a vast polyphonic ensemble.”

Indian English and ‘Vernacular’ India examines the uneasy relationship of English with Indian languages by tracing its lineage in the country and reassessing its character in the age of globalization. The book promotes a symbiotic multilingualism that would enable the consolidated presence of English and Indian languages in the world's largest democracy. This volume will be of interest to researchers and students of literature, language resource studies, Indian writing in English, media studies, culture studies and sociolinguistics.

In ‘Connectivity’ a retired bureaucrat’s telephone line is accidentally connected to that of a grieving man’s; while a heart surgeon helps his patient across the great abyss in ‘Song without End’. The skilful grooming of a poet is described in ‘A Lane in Lucknow’; and a senile old nawab finds himself a stranger to an altered world in ‘The Taste of Almonds’. In ‘Through the Looking Glass’ a man losing his sight finds he can get to the heart of all the books in his library by an inexplicable miracle; and in ‘Play’ the roles an actor enacts are a source of important life lessons. Song without End and Other Stories is a collection of fifteen captivating short stories by Neelum Saran Gour that amuse and absorb by their lively engagement with people; places and ideas in an unforgettable way. Funny; humane and culturally vibrant; these tales portray characters who are challenged by life and who arrive at their own individual truths.

Collection of fiction by 20th century Indic English authors, published by Penguin Books, India commemorating its twentieth year in the publishing industry; includes English translation of fiction by 20th century authors of Indic languages.