Concise History of Indian Literature in English

by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra

This book is a history of two hundred years of Indian literature in English, from 1800 to now. It is a revised, updated, text-only edition of An Illustrated History of Indian Literature in English, which was published to wide acclaim in 2003.

The book comprises twenty-four chapters, written by some of India's foremost scholars and critics. Though the contributors are all experts in their chosen areas, they have written this book for the non-specialist general reader. From Kipling and Tagore to the later playwrights, poets, historians, naturalists, and diasporic writers of the twentieth century, this book spans a vast range of authors and genres. Biographical information on major literary figures is provided, and in most cases their work is historically contextualized.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Academic

472 pages, Paperback

First published November 10, 2009

About the author

Arvind Krishna Mehrotra was born in Lahore in 1947. He has published six collections of poetry in English and two of translation — a volume of Prakrit love poems, The Absent Traveller, recently reissued in Penguin Classics, and Songs of Kabir (NYRB Classics). His Oxford India Anthology of Twelve Modern Indian Poets (1992) has been very influential. He has edited several books, including History of Indian Literature in English (Columbia University Press, 2003) and Collected Poems in English by Arun Kolatkar (Bloodaxe Books, 2010). His collection of essays Partial Recall: Essays on Literature and Literary History was published by Permanent Black in 2012. A second book of essays, Translating the Indian Past (Permanent Black), appeared in 2019.

Mehrotra was nominated for the post of Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford in 2009. He came second behind Ruth Padel, who later resigned over allegations of a smear campaign against Trinidadian poet Derek Walcott (who had himself earlier withdrawn from the election process).

Mehrotra has translated more than 200 literary works from ancient Prakrit language, and from Hindi, Bengali and Gujarati.

Reviews

[Ajith. T · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book on History of Indian Literature in English. It is a sequel to Iyengar's book.

[Sarthak Jaiswal]

Want to read

[Sayeon ANSHIKA · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely very useful for English literature students.