Essay on Indian Writing in English!

English is a foreign language but since the British came to India the language has had an
impact on several fields—in education, literary effort and as a medium of communication.

Indian English Literature refers to that body of work by writers from India, who writes in the
English language and whose native or co-native language could be one of the numerous
regional and indigenous languages of India. English literature in India is also linked with the
works of writers of the Indian diaspora born in India but residing elsewhere.

A pioneer of this literature was Raja Rammohan Roy whose prose works is noteworthy.
There were poets who are considered the first of the Indian English poets: Henry Vivian
Derozio, Madhusudan Dutt, Aru and Toru Dutt, and Manmohan Ghose. Indian literature in
English actually dates back to the 1830s to Kashiprasad Ghosh, who is considered the first
Indian poet write in English.

Sochee Chunder Dutt was the first writer of fiction. In the beginning, however, political
writing in the novel or essay format was dominant, as can be seen in Raja Rammohan Roy’
works. An outstanding Indo-Anglian writer was Aurobindo Ghose whose poetic magnum
opus is Savitri an epic. In prose his most effective work is The Life Divine outlining his
metaphysics in a rich language.

Some of Rabindranath Tagore’s works were originally written in English Sadhana

In the genre of novel, three early writers made a mark. Mulik Raj Anand’s Coolie,
Untouchable, The Big Heart and other novels are about the underprivileged in India. R.K.
Narayan has become famous for creating the imaginary ‘Malgudi’ as the locale for most of
his novels. He has a humorous manner and an eye for the comic in the world around him. His
works include Swami and his Friends.

The Dark Room, the Guide, Waiting for the Mahatma and The Man Eater of Malgudi Raja
Rao is a good short story writer and has written only four novels but they are significant.
They include Kanthapura, The Serpent and the Rope, and The Cat and Shakespeare. Besides
the legendary and hugely venerated Indian English literary personalities like Rabindranath
Tagore or R K Narayan, later novelists like Kamala Markandaya (Nectar in a Sieve, Some
Inner Fury A Silence of Desire, Two Virgins), Manohar Malgaonkar (Distant

Drum, Combat of Shadows, The Princes, A Bend in the Ganges and The Devil’s Wind),
Anita Desai (Clear Light of Day, The Accompanist, Fire on the Mountain, Games at
Twilight) and Nayantara Sehgal, have ceaselessly captured the spirit of an independent India
struggling to break away from the British and establish a distinct identity. Khushwant Singh
(Train to Pakistan), Bhabani Bhattacharya (So Many Hungers, He Who Rides Tiger, Music
for Mohini) are other Indian novelists famous for their writing in English.
In the recent past, we have had a crop of fresh talent. During the 1980s and 1990s, India had
emerged as a major literary nation. Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children had become a rage
around the world, winning the Booker Prize. Other Indian English literature novelists of
repute of the contemporary times include V.S. Naipaul, Shobha De (Selective Memory), G.V.
Desani, M. Ananthanarayanan, Arun Joshi, O.V. Vijayan, Allan Sealy (The Trotternama),
Shashi Tharoor (Show Business, The Great Indian Novel) and Amitav Ghosh (Circle of
Reason, Shadow Lines). Vikram Seth wrote a novel in verse. The Suitable Boy, which is
equally famous for the stupendous advance he got from his publishers. Upamanyu Chatterjee
(English August) has made a name for himself as a foremost modern novelist.

Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things won the 1997 Booker Prize and became an
international best-seller overnight. Rohinton Mistry, Firdaus Kanga, Kiran Desai (Strange
Happenings in the Guava Orchard), Sudhir Kakar (The Ascetic of Desire), Ardeshir Vakil
(Beach Boy) and Jhumpa Lahiri (Interpreter of Maladies) are some other renowned writers of
Indian origin. Satish Gujral’s A Brush with Life, R.K. Laxman’s The Tunnel of Time, Prof.
Bipin Chandra’s India after Independence, Sunil Khilnani’s The Idea of India, J.N. Dixit’s
Fifty Years of India’s Foreign Policy, Yogesh Chadha’s Rediscovering Gandhi and Pavan
K.Varma’s The Great Indian Middle Class, are also some notable works of recent times.

The mid-20th century Indian literature in English had witnessed the emergence of poets such
as Nissim Ezekiel (The Unfurnished Man), P. Lai, A.K. Ramanujan (The Striders, Relations,
Second Sight, Selected Poems), Dom Moraes (A Beginning), Keki N. Daruwalla and Geive
Patel.

These authors make use of Indian phrases alongside English words and have tried to
reproduce a blend of the Indian and the Western cultures. While Indian poets, novelists,
essayists, dramatists have been making momentous and considerable contributions to world
literature since the pre-Independence era, the past few years have witnessed a thriving of
Indian English writing in the global market. The works of Indian authors writing in English
are often to be found on the best-seller list. They are also incurring and earning an immense
amount of critical fame.