Course abstract

It is often argued that the best Indian literature is to be found in the various Indian languages. This course offers a choice selection of significant modern Indian literary works, produced in regional languages, from writers ranging from Tagore to Salma in English translation. These landmark works offer literary snapshots of modern Indian histories, folklore, societal structures such as class and gender, and the aspirations and struggles of men and women who have lived and live through diverse Indian spaces across the length and breadth of the country. The course offers in miniature a “salad bowl” (Ashis Nandy) of Indian literary works in translation that illustrate the complexities of Indian identities, and encourages students to probe concepts such as modernism, regionalism, the contemporary, and representations of history, class, and gender in modern Indian writing in translation.