POSTCOLONIAL MODERNITY AND THE INDIAN NOVEL: On Catastrophic Realism

Book Details:

• Author: Sourit Bhattacharya

• ISBN: 9783030950521

• Language: English

• Edition: 2022

• Pages: 296

• Cover: Hardcover

• Publisher: Rawat Publications

About the Book:

This book argues that modernity in postcolonial India has been marked by catastrophe and crisis. Focusing on literary representations of significant events like the 1943 Bengal Famine, the 1967–72 Naxalbari Movement, and the 1975–77 Indian Emergency, it reveals the underlying colonially-engineered agrarian crises that have shaped these catastrophic moments in Indian history.

The author examines how prominent novelists such as Bhabani Bhattacharya, Mahasweta Devi, Salman Rushdie, Rohinton Mistry, Nabarun Bhattacharya, and Nayantara Sahgal, among others, have portrayed these events, reflecting on the long-term crises through various aesthetic modalities within realism. These include analytical-affective, critical realist, quest modes, and non-realist forms like metafiction, urban fantastic, and magical realism. These diverse forms are collectively discussed as postcolonial catastrophic realism, a literary mode that critiques the postcolonial condition.

Contents:

1. Modernity, Catastrophe, and Realism in the Postcolonial Indian Novel

2. Disaster and Realism: Novels of the 1943 Bengal Famine

3. Interrogating the Naxalbari Movement: Mahasweta Devi’s Quest Novels

4. The Aftermath of the Naxalbari Movement: Nabarun Bhattacharya’s Urban Fantastic Tales

5. Writing the Indian Emergency: Magical and Critical Realisms

6. Conclusion

About the Author:

Sourit Bhattacharya is a Lecturer in Postcolonial Studies at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. He is a co-editor of the book Nabarun Bhattacharya (2020) and Sanglap: Journal of Literary and Cultural Inquiry. His academic expertise lies in postcolonial studies, particularly in the context of South Asian literature and its intersection with historical and cultural crises.