NET (English) Complete Course

Learn English Literature with Kalyani Vallath

MODULES 20-21 READING

This reading material gives you information on the following:
Module 20: Indian Literature up to the Period of Independence
Lecture (a) Indian Literature up to the Period of Independence
Module 21: Post-Independence Indian Literature in English
Lecture (a) Post-Independence Poetry
Lecture (b) Post-Independence Drama
Lecture (c) Fiction of the Period of Independence
Lecture (d) Contemporary Indian English Fiction

INDIAN LITERATURE IN ENGLISH

Introduction

English language reached India in the early 1600s when the East India Company was
established and the missionaries began their evangelical efforts. The earliest works of Indian
literature in English were written by the orientalists and the British writers of the empire. The
orientalist Sir William Jones was interested in the rediscovery of India’s past and translated
Kalidasa’s Abhinjanashakuntalam into English. Some of the British writers of the empire are
Rudyard Kipling, Jim Corbett, E. M. Forster, John Marsters, J. G. Farrell, etc. The Renaissance
in modern India began with Raja Rammohan Roy. He wanted English-medium education in
India as against Sanskrit. Rajmohan’s Wife (1864, 1935) by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee was the
first published English novel by an Indian. Henry Derozio was the first Indian poet in English. A
Byronic melancholy is a chief feature of his works visible in his patriotic poem The Harp of
India and his narrative verse The Fakir of Jungheera. Michael Madhusudhan Dutt is a pioneer of
Bengali drama. Some of the early Indian English writers of importance are Toru Dutt,
Rabindranath Tagore, M. K. Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Aurobindo and Sarojini Naidu. Toru
Dutt wrote poems and a novel both in French and English. Her famous poetry collection is A
Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields (1876) and popular poems are “Our Casuarina Tree”,
“Lakshman”, “The Lotus”, etc. Tagore primarily wrote in Bengali and translated his works into
English. His masterpiece is Gitanjali (1913) which is a collection of 103 poems that explores the
relationship between the human and the divine using
For Detailed Reading for This Module Vaishnava tradition for his imagery. Aurobindo’s
poetry is well-known as Overhead Poetry or mantric
Indian Writing in English. Ed. Kalyani
poetry. It centers around the principles of integral yoga
Vallath.Published by Bodhi Tree
best illustrated by his poem “Thought the Paraclete”.
Books and Publications, 2015.
Savitri is his epic poem based on the Mahabharata. The
Story of My Experiments with Truth (1925) is the
famous autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi. Jawaharlal Nehru combined personal and public
histories in his narratives as can be seen in his works Glimpses of World History (1934), An
Autobiography (1936) and The Discovery of India (1946). Sarojini Naidu is called the
Nightingale of India. Love is a predominant theme in her poetry. Her first and famous anthology
is The Golden Threshold (1905), a collection of poems about common people engaged in daily
vocations. The Broken Wing (1917), The Sceptred Flute (1943) and The Indian Weavers (1971)
are her other poetry collections. The Temple is a trilogy of lyric sequences subtitled “A
Pilgrimage of Love”.

The pre-independence Indian poetry was romantic, idealistic, nationalistic, mythical,

legendary, spiritual and universal in its themes. However, the post-independence poetry gave
more importance to cultural and social realism. They were rooted in the present and employed a
concrete rather than an abstract style. The chief factors responsible for the emergence of new
modernist and experimental poetry are economic and social progress, spread of English
language, scientific and technological advancement, broadening horizons of the middle class, the
spread of agnosticism and atheism among the educated intellectuals, etc. The post-independence
poetry was characterised by a rejection of the romantic past and dealt mainly with themes like
alienation and exile. The use of symbolism, words from regional languages, free verse forms,
verbal melody composed in an unsentimental voice, everyday language were the common
structural characteristics. Later, the postmodern tendencies promoted the use of parody, pastiche,
collage, intertexuality and literary allusiveness. Nissim Ezekiel is acclaimed as the father of post-
independence Indian English verse. He belongs to the Jewish community and the major theme of
his poems is the existential crisis of the modern man. His major poetry collections are A Time to
Change and Other Poems (1952), Sixty Poems (1953), Hymns in Darkness (1976) and Latter-
Day Psalms (1982). His play The Sleepwalkers pokes fun at the Indians’ craze for everything
American. Jayanta Mahapatra is a part of the trio of poets along with A. K. Ramanujan and R.
Parthasarathy. He is a bilingual poet who wrote landscape poetry using symbolist-surrealist
techniques on the social life of Orissa. A Rain of Rites (1976) is the most acclaimed collection of
poems, “Dawn at Puri” and “Hunger” being the major poems. A. K. Ramanujan wrote both in
English and Kannada. He is well-known as a translator. The conflict between the colonial
identity and India’s post-colonial identity is a major theme in his writings. His works are rich in
allusions to Hinduism, Indian mythology and folklore. The Striders (1966), Relations (1971) and
Hymns for the Drowning (1981) are some of his collections. He translated U. R.
Ananthamurthy’s novel Samskara into English. R. Parthasarathy is a translator, anthologist and
critic. His major work is Rough Passage (1977), a poem about the influence of two entirely
different cultures upon an individual. He translated the Tamil epic Chilappathikaram into
English. Kamala Das is a leading Malayalam author whose works are best-known for the explicit
treatment of female sexuality. In Kamala Das’s poetry, we find romantic subjectivism, the
suppression of the feminine in a male dominated society and confessional and autobiographical
elements. Summer in Calcutta is her well-known poetry collection, the important poems being
“An Introduction”, “My Grandmother’s House”, “The Sunshine Cat”, etc. Keki N. Daruwalla is
one among the Parsi Quartret along with Adil Jussawalla, K. D. Katrak, Gieve Patel. Daruwalla
is popularly known as the poet of violence, the poet of the morgue and the tower of silence, a
poet of wild nature and animal images. Some of his major poetry collections are Crossing of
Rivers (1976), The Keeper of the Dead (1982), Landscapes (1987). Some of his popular poems
are “Fire-hymn”, “Hawk”, “Notes from Underground”, etc. Adil Jussawalla was born in Mumbai
in a Parsi family. He wrote complex poetry that evokes an intense, dehumanised, spiritually
sterile landscape suspended in a perpetual state of catastrophe. His poems are ironic, fragmented
and non-linear. His poetry collection Trying to Say Goodbye was conferred the Sahitya Academy
Award in 2014. He later turned to journalism and returned to poetry after a gap of 35 years. His
poems present the artificiality and the vulgarity of his age, the gap between illusion and reality
and the beauty and ugliness of love. He looks at the present unromantically in all its fragmented
reality. His poem Sea Breeze, Bombay is a partition poem. Gieve Patel is regarded as the poet of
the body since human body is a recurrent theme in his poems. His popular poems are “On Killing
a Tree”, “Old Man’s Death”, “Squirrels in Washington”, “Post Mortem”, etc. A. K. Mehrotra is
famous for his edition of History of Indian Literature in English. His poems are influenced by
surrealism, has a postmodernist style, and it is born out of the nostalgic reminiscences of
Allahabad. Agha Shahid Ali is a Kashmiri-born Muslim poet. He identified himself as an
American poet writing in English. His popular collection is Call Me Ishmael Tonight: A Book of
Ghazals (2003). Meena Alexander lives in New York and writes lyrical poetry. Her poems deal
with themes of exile and identity. Her famous poetry collections are A House of a Thousand
Doors (1988) and Illiterate Heart (2002). Her novels are Nampally Road and Manhattan Music.
A House of a Thousand Doors explores the themes of colonial exploitation and examines the
concept of brain-drain from India. The poems of Vikram Seth are of a personal type and explores
the themes of love, friendship, familial ties and the loneliness of living in a foreign land. His
famous poetry collections are Mappings (1980) and All You Who Sleep Tonight (1990).

The post-independence drama fused Western norms with Indian tradition, myth and
history. They offered a mix of music, spectacle, melodrama, humour, romance and social
criticism. The post-independence drama had modernist elements and also influenced Indian
cinema. Badal Sircar is famous for his anti-establishment plays during the Naxalite movement in
the 1970s. Evam Indrajit (1962) is his famous play
Useful Test Papers and Question- and has elements of impressionistic theatre. The
Answers for this Module are major themes are the meaninglessness of existence,
Available in the following Books: violence, inhumanity, etc. Mahasweta Devi wrote
her plays based on the life and struggles faced by the
A Treasurehouse of Multiple Choice tribal communities in the states like Bihar, West
Questions Vol. 1-9. Ed. Kalyani Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh. Her
Vallath, published by Bodhi Tree
famous play is Bayen which talks about Chandidasi
Books and Publications.
who is separated from her husband and son when
she is accused of being a bayen, a woman who
breastfeeds dead children and has the ability to curse
others. Mother of 1084 is another important play which is the story of the mother Sujata who lost
her son Brati as he was killed for being a Naxalite. She is best-known for her Breast Stories
which comprises “Breast-Giver”, “Behind the Bodice” and “Draupadi”. Vijay Tendulkar derives
inspiration for his plays from real-life incidents and violence is an important element in his plays.
He is regarded as an Angry Young Man and rebel of the theatre. Silence! The Court is in Session
(1968) is his well-known play about Leela Benare, who ignores social norms. The play examines
the social problem of the society’s cruel attitude to an unmarried woman. Gruhastha
(Householder) (1947), Shrimant (The Rich) (1956) and Sakharam Binder (Sakhārām, the Book-
Binder) (1972) are his other plays. Girish Karnad employed history and mythology to examine
contemporary issues. His plays are counter canonical discourses and makes use of indigenous
folk and classical techniques like Bhagavata and dolls in plot development. Dolls are used in his
play Hayavadana. Bhagavata is a narrator and a participant in the play. His play Yayati is written
in the style of yakshagana. The theme is taken from the first chapter of Mahabhatata Adiparva.
Naga Mandala is based on the two oral tales that Karnad has heard from his friend A. K.
Ramanujan narrated by women. Manjula Padmanabhan discusses the social issues through her
plays in a sarcastic tone. Her play Lights Out (1984) exposes the violence against women and the
indifference of the society towards it. Harvest (1997) presents how a family falls victim to the
flesh-market controlled by the technocratic Western world. Hidden Fires is written in the form of
monologues. Mahesh Dattani is the first English playwright to be awarded the Sahitya Academy
Award in 1998. Gender identity, gender discrimination and communal tensions are the major
themes. Where There’s a Will (1988), Dance Like a Man (1989), Tara (1990), Final Solutions
(1993) and On a Muggy Night in Mumbai (1998) are his popular plays.

The Post-Independence Indian Fiction demonstrates a quest for new values and national
consciousness, exposure of social double standards, the partition of India, communal riots, the
problem of casteism, the subjugation of women, the poverty of illiterate masses, etc. Nirad C.
Chaudhuri is called the “last British imperialist”. His famous autobiography is The
Autobiography of an Unknown Indian (1951). His other works are A Passage to England (1959),
The Continent of Circe (1965), The Intellectual in India (1967) and Thy Hand, Great Anarch
(1988). Mulk Raj Anand is one of the greatest Indian novelists and is known as “India’s Charles
Dickens”. Both Mulk Raj Anand and Charles Dickens use social realism in their novels to reflect
the sufferings undergone by the lowest classes in the society. The Untouchable (1935) tells the
story of the Bhangi (lower class) toilet-cleaner Bakha. Coolie (1936) narrates the story of
Munoo, the fourteen year old orphan. Two Leaves and a Bud (1937) revolves around a Punjabi
labourer Gangu who tries to protect his daughter from a British soldier. R.K. Narayan is famous
for his portrayal of Malgudi, a fictional village in South India. He is the first recipient of Sahitya
Academy Award for English literature. Narayan’s Trilogy comprises Swami and Friends (1935),
The Bachelor of Arts (1937) and The English Teacher (1945) which are loosely based around the
events of the author’s life. The Man-Eater of Malgudi (1961) revolves around the titular
character Vasu. Raja Rao is also one of the greatest Indian English novelists. His works are
deeply rooted in Hinduism but also shows Western influences. Kanthapura (1938) is narrated
using the oral tradition of Indian sthalapurana by Achakka, a grandmother figure. In this novel,
Moorthy is allegorically presented as an avatar of Gandhi. The harikatha tradition is also part of
the novel. The Serpent and the Rope (1960) is a massive novel that demonstrates a shift from the
Gandhism of Kanthapura to Vedanta. The Cat and Shakespeare (1965) is a smaller novel
regarded as the sequel to The Serpent and the Rope. Bhabani Bhattacharya is a writer of Bengali
origin and was strongly influenced by Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi. Social realism
is a prominent strategy of his works like that of Mulk Raj Anand. His major works are Some
Memorable Yesterdays (1941), So Many Hungers! (1947), Indian Cavalcade (1948), He Who
Rides a Tiger (1955), The Golden Boat(1956) and Music for Mohini (1964). G.V. Desani is
famous for his chronicles of the adventures of an Anglo-Malay man in search of wisdom and
enlightenment titled All About H. Hatterr (1948). Another important work is Attia Hossain’s
Sunlight on a Broken Column (1961) which is about the pre-independence days in Lucknow.
Kamala Markandaya is one of the major first generation Indian woman novelists. The major
themes of her novels are East-West encounter, clash of values, conflict between tradition and
modernity, etc. Nectar in a Sieve (1954) is set in India in a period of intense urban development.
Two Virgins (1973) and Possession (1963) are her other novels. A Handful of Rice (1966) is set a
decade after independence and depicts the frustrations of an adolescent. Nayantara Sahgal is the
daughter of Vijayalakshmi Pandit the freedom fighter and the cousin of Indira Gandhi. Her
novels are mostly set in colonial India and explores the personal crisis of India’s elite amidst
political upheaval. Her novel Rich Like Us (1985) is a historical and political novel set in New
Delhi during the chaotic period between 1932 and 1970. The major themes of the novels of
Chaman Nahal are freedom struggle, socio-political discontent, horrors of partition, etc. My True
Faces (1973) is her first novel. Azadi (1975) is part of the Gandhi Quartret, the other novels
being The Crown and the Loincloth (1981), The Salt of Life (1990) and The Triumph of the
Tricolour (1992). Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is famous for having written a number of screenplays
for the Merchant Ivory Productions. She is the only person to have won a Booker and an Oscar.
Heat and Dust (1975) is her famous novel about a woman who travels to India to unravel the
mystery of her grandmother’s life during the time of the British Raj. Shashi Deshpande mostly
deals with the situation of women in the urban, middle-class life in her fiction. That Long Silence
(1989) discusses a category of women who do not raise their voice against suppression. Small
Remedies (2000) is about a woman writing a biography about a woman. The novels of Anita
Desai revolves around the lives of women, their fantasies, imagination, alienation, enchantment,
resentment, etc. Cry, The Peacock (1963) is her first novel. Bye-bye Blackbird (1971) is a third-
world immigration novel. Fire on the Mountain (1977) revolves around the elegant old widow
Nanda Kaul and the strange, isolated child Raka. Arun Joshi’s novels also deal with the themes
of alienation and existentialism as seen in The Foreigner (1969), The Strange Case of Billy
Biswas (1971) and The Last Labyrinth (1981). Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters (1998) is set
against the time of Partition with the focus on the New Woman. Githa Hariharan’s works belong
to the renaissance of Indo-English literature and her prose forms a key part of post-modern
women’s literature in India. Her most popular novel is The Thousand Faces of Night (1992)
which is a saga of Indian womanhood caught in the 200 year old customs and traditions. The
novels of Amitav Ghosh focuses on travel and diaspora, history and memory, communal
violence, love and loss, etc. His novel The Shadow Lines (1988) was written after the
assassination of Indira Gandhi, which resulted in riots. The Calcutta Chromosome (1995) is a
postcolonial dystopian novel on the disturbing effects of the internet on people’s lives. The Glass
Palace (2000) is a family saga spanning three generations. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is an
Indian-American author whose works focus on the experiences of South Asian immigrants. The
Mistress of Spices (1997) and Sister of my Heart (1999) are her major novels. Upamanyu
Chatterjee is an Indian civil servant who depicts the Indian Administrative System with hilarious
sarcasm. His novels discusses the problems faced by the urban educated youth as visible in
English, August: An Indian Story (1988) and The Last Burden (1993). Man-woman relationship
and self-discovery are the major themes of the novels of Anita Nair. Ladies Coupé (2001) and
Mistress (2005) are some of her novels. Belonging and identity is a major theme in the novels of
Kiran Desai. Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard (1998) follows the adventures of a young man
trying to avoid the responsibility of adult life. The White Tiger (2008) is the most acclaimed
novel of Aravind Adiga. He juxtaposes individual experiences of poverty against India’s rise as a
modern global economy in the novel.

In a Nutshell

 19th century
o Renaissance Writers
 Raja Rammohan Roy (1774-1833)
 M.N.Roy
 Sukanta Chaudhuri
o Early writers
 Sake Dean Mahomet
 Travels of Dean Mahomet
 First book written by an Indian in English
 Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838-94)
 Rajmohan’s Wife (1864, 1935)
 First published English novel by an Indian
 C. S. Nazir
 The First Parsee Baronet (1866)
 First Indian verse play in English
o Poetry
 Henry Derozio (1809-31)
 “The Harp of India”
 Kashiprasad Ghose
 The Moon in September
 Manmohan Ghose (1869-1924)
  Primavera (1890)
 Toru Dutt (1756-77)
 A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields (1876)
 “Our Casuarina Tree” (1881)
 Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)
 Gitanjali (1913)
 Sri Aurobindo (1872-1915)
 Savitri (1940)
 Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949)
 The Golden Threshold (1905)
 The Bird of Time (1912)
o Drama
 Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1824-73)
 Meghnad Bodh Kavya (1861)
 Tilottama
 Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)
 Mukta-Dhara
o Prose
 Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964)
 Glimpses of World History (1934)
 The Discovery of India (1946)
 S. Radhakrishnan (1888-1975)
 Indian Philosophy (1957)
 Post-Independence Poetry and Drama
o Poetry
 Shiv K. Kumar (1921-2017)
 Articulate Silences (1970)
 Cobwebs in the Sun (1974)
 Nissim Ezekiel (1924-2004)
 Time To Change and other Poems (1952)
 The Unfinished Man (1960)
 The Exact Name (1965)
 Jayanta Mahapatra (b. 1928)
 A Rain of Rites (1976)
 Relationship (1980)
 A.K. Ramanujan (1929-93)
 The Striders (1966)
 Relations (1971)
 Arun Kolatkar (1932-2004)
  Jejuri (1976)
 R. Parthasarathy (b. 1934)
 Rough Passage (1977)
 Kamala Das (1934-2009)
 Summer in Calcutta (1965)
 The Old Playhouse and Other Poems (1973)
 Keki N Daruwalla (b. 1937)
 Apparition in April (1971)
 Dom Moraes (1938-2004)
 Spree
 Gieve Patel (b. 1940)
 “On Killing a Tree”
 A.K. Mehrotra (b. 1947)
 Middle Earth (1984)
 Nine Enclosures (1976)
 Agha Shahid Ali (1949-2001)
 Call Me Ishmael Tonight: A Book of Ghazals (2003)
 Meena Alexander (b. 1951)
 House of a Thousand Doors (1988)
 Illiterate Heart (2002)
o Drama
 Badal Sircar (1925-2011)
 Evam Indrajit (1965)
 That Other History (1964)
 There Is No End (1971)
 Mahasweta Devi (1926-2016)
 Bayen (1997)
 Mother of 1084
 Vijay Tendulkar (b. 1928)
 Silence! The Court is in Session (1968)
 Gruhastha (Householder) (1947)
 Shrimant (The Rich) (1956)
 Sakharam Binder (Sakhārām, the Book-Binder) (1972)
 Asif Currimbhoy (b. 1928)
 The Tourist Mecca (1959)
 The Restaurant (1960)
 The Doldrummers (1960)
 Inquilab (1970)
 Girish Karnad (b. 1938)
  Yayati
 The Fire and the Rain
 Bali the Sacrifice
 Hayavadana
 Naga Mandala
 Flowers
 Uma Parameswaran (b. 1938)
 Sons Must Die
 Meera (1971)
 Sita’s Promise (1981)
 Mangoes on a Maple Tree
 Manjula Padmanabhan (b. 1935)
 Lights Out (1984)
 Harvest (1997)
 Hidden Fires
 Mahesh Dattani (b. 1958)
 Where There’s a Will (1988)
 Dance Like a Man (1989)
 Tara (1990)
 Final565 Solutions (1993)
 On a Muggy Night in Mumbai (1998)
For Detailed Classes and Notes on All Aspects of Literature:

TES, 67 Vrindavan Gardens, Pattom Palace PO, Trivandrum-4, Kerala

Call: 9387839871 Email: vallaths.tes@gmail.com

 Post-Independence Indian Fiction

o Nirad C. Chaudhuri (1897-1999)
 The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian (1951)
 A Passage to England (1959)
 The Continent of Circe (1965)
 The Intellectual in India
 Thy Hand, Great Anarch
o Mulk Raj Anand (1905-2004)
 The Untouchable (1935)
 Coolie (1936)
 Two Leaves and a Bud (1937)
 The Old Woman and the Cow
o R.K. Narayan (1906-2001)
 Swami and Friends (1935)
 The Bachelor of Arts (1937)
 The Guide (1958)
 The Man-Eater of Malgudi (1961)
o Raja Rao (1908-2006)
 Kanthapura (1938)
 The Serpent and the Rope (1960)
 The Cat and Shakespeare (1965)
 The Chessmaster and His Moves (1988)
o Bhabani Bhattacharya (1906-88)
 Some Memorable Yesterdays (1941)
 So Many Hungers! (1947)
 Indian Cavalcade (1948)
 He Who Rides a Tiger (1955)
 The Golden Boat(1956)
 Music for Mohini (1964)
o M. Anantanarayan (1907-81)
 The Silver Pilgrimage (1961)
o G.V. Desani (1909-2000)
 All About H. Hatterr (1948)
o Attia Hossain (1919-98)
 Sunlight on a Broken Column (1961)
o Manohar Malgonkar (1913-2010)
 Distant Drum (1960)
 A Bend in the Ganges (1964)
o K.A. Abbas (1914-1987)
 Inquilab: First Great Novel of the Indian Revolution (1955)
 The World is My Village (1983)
o Kamala Markandaya (1924-2004)
 Nectar in a Sieve (1954)
 Two Virgins (1973)
 Possession (1963)
 A Handful of Rice (1966)
o Nayantara Sahgal (b.1927)
 Prison and Chocolate Cake (1954)
 A Time to Be Happy (1958)
 This Time of Morning (1966)
 Rich Like Us (1985)
 Mistaken Identity (1989)
o Chaman Nahal (1927-2013)
 My True Faces (1973)
 Azadi (1975)
o Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1927-2013)
 To Whom She Will (1955)
 The Nature of Passion (1956)
 Heat and Dust (1975)
 In Search of Love and Beauty (1983)
o Shashi Deshpande (b. 1938)
 That Long Silence (1989)
 The Dark Holds No Terrors (1980)
 If I Die Today (1982)
 Small Remedies (2000)

For the Best Grooming as an

English Literature Professional

TES Classroom Coaching at Trivandrum

TES Classroom Coaching at Ernakulam

TES Short Term Workshops at Your

College or University

TES Distance Learning Program

TES Comprehensive Notes

o Anita Desai (b. 1937)

 Cry, The Peacock (1963)
 Voices in the City (1965)
 Bye-bye Blackbird (1971)
 The Peacock Garden
 Where Shall We Go This Summer?
 Cat on a Houseboat
 Fire on the Mountain (1977)
 Games at Twilight (1978)
 Clear Light of Day (1980)
 The Village by the Sea (1982)
 In Custody (1984)
 Baumgartner's Bombay (1988)
o Arun Joshi (1939-1993)
  The Foreigner (1969)
 The Strange Case of Billy Biswas (1971)
 The Last Labyrinth (1981)
o Manju Kapur (b. 1948)
 Difficult Daughters (1998)
 A Married Woman (2003)
 The Immigrant (2008)
o Allan Sealy (1951)
 The Trotter-Nama
o Vikram Seth (b. 1952)
 The Golden Gate (1986)
 A Suitable Boy (1993)
 An Equal Music (1999)
 A Suitable Girl (2016)
o Githa Hariharan (b. 1954)
 The Thousand Faces of Night (1992)
 The Art of Dying (1993)
 The Ghosts of Vasu Master (1994)
 When Dreams Travel (1999)
o Shashi Tharoor (b. 1956)
 The Great Indian Novel (1989)
 Show Business (1992)
 Riot (2001)
 The Era of Darkness (2017)
o Amitav Ghosh (b. 1956)
 The Circle of Reason (1986)
 The Shadow Lines (1988)
 The Calcutta Chromosome (1995)
 The Glass Palace (2000)
 The Hungry Tide (2004)
o Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (b. 1956)
 The Mistress of Spices (1997)
 Sister of my Heart (1999)
o David Davidar (b. 1958)
 The House of Blue Mangoes (2002)
 The Solitude of Emperors (2007)
 Ithaca (2011)
o Upamanyu Chatterjee (b. 1959)
 English, August: An Indian Story (1988)
 The Last Burden (1993)
o Jeet Thayil (b. 1959)
 Narcopolis (2014)
o Vikram Chandra (b. 1961)
 Red Earth and Pouring Rain
o Jaisree Misra (b. 1961)
 Ancient Promises (2000)
 Accidents Like Love and Marriage (2001)
 Rani (2007)
 Secret and Sins (2010)
 Secret and Lies (2009)
 A Scandalous Secret (2011)
o Amit Chaudhuri (b. 1962)
 A New World (2000)
 The Immortals (2009)
 Odysseus Abroad (2015)
o Anita Nair (b. 1966)
 The Better Man (2000)
 Ladies Coupé (2001)
 Mistress (2005)
 Lessons In Forgetting (2010)
 Cut Like Wound (2012)
o Kiran Desai (b. 1971)
 Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard (1998)
 The Inheritance of Loss (2006)
o Aravind Adiga (b. 1974)
 The White Tiger (2008)
 The Last Man in Tower (2011)