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Best of Indian Literature 1957-2007 (Set of 4 Books)

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Item Code: NAH895
Publisher: SAHITYA AKADEMI, DELHI
Author: Nirmal Kanti Bhattacharjee & A.J. Thomas
Language: English
Edition: 2017
Pages: 1671
Cover: Hardcover
Other Details 10.0 inch X 7.5 inch
Weight 4 kg
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Book Description

Volume I
Book I: 9788126041381
Book II: 9788126041381

Volume II
Book I: 9788126041398
Book II: 9788126041398

Back of the Book

The Best of Indian Literature, as the title signifies, contains the best of short fiction, poetry, drama and creative prose which were published in Indian Literature during the half-century 1957-2007. As the editors put it, "Although we have tried to keep the best pieces ... published during the half-century, care has been taken to provide representation to literatures from all Indian languages. Well-known and celebrated names may cohabit on these pages with little-known or unknown names, as we have gone by the quality of the work alone." Many a gem of Indian literary imagination finds a place in this book. The creative growth of many doyens of different literatures of our land is mapped in these volumes. All 'periods,' 'phases' and 'movements' in Indian literatures during the past century and the latter half of the 19th century have been represented in this book. It is no exaggeration to call it 'one of its kind.'

Another aspect of this book is that it is a live record of the origins and growth of literary translation of Indian works into English. The period commencing in the early 1980s witnesses a leapfrogging of literary translation into English, and Indian Literature turning into a bimonthly from its half-yearly and quarterly formats, which is reflected in the extra-voluminous Volume Two.

About the Book

Though modernity had dawned in Indian regional literatures in the early decades of the last century, and had, almost simultaneously, taken up the cause of the nationalist movement and themselves developed tremendously in the process, each literature projecting the vision of a free, glorious Indian nation-although in actual fact the country was fragmented into several hundred little kingdoms-most of these regional literatures had not in fact consciously come up on the world scenario. The confidence that Indian literatures were worthy of standing on their own feet along with the world's best was not there even at the conceptual level. We were happy with where we were; Tagore's Nobel Prize had given a fillip to the national pride, and sustained it for nearly half a century; but that had to sadly substitute for any kind of real evaluation and awareness of the worth of one's own literatures.

It was about this time that Indian Literature was conceived and founded, in October 1957, with the express purpose of making the nation aware of the existence of the various rich literatures of the linguistic regions of India. As it sails past its Golden Jubilee Year, the development and growth a number of our regional languages have registered can be measured by the number of excellent translations they have produced in English which helped those literatures, in turn, to be catapulted onto the world stage. Indian Literature can proudly claim the role of the beacon for all such translation activities. Truly, Indian Literature is the journal of Indian Literature in English Translation, the brand new discipline several of our universities have adopted recently, and which is being taken up by many more ..

About the Author

Nirmal Kanti Bhattacharjee (b. 1947) is a reputed scholar, critic, cultural administrator and translator. He has taught English Literature at a Gauhati university college and Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University, Kolkata. He has also held important positions including Regional Office at Kolkata and Director, National Book Trust at Delhi. He has also edited Sahitya Akademi's prestigious bi-monthly journal Indian Literature for five years. An accomplished translator from Bengali into English and vice-versa, his English translations of books by major Bengali fiction writers like Mahasweta Devi, Sunil Gangopadhyay, Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay, Manik Bandyopadhyay and others have been very well received. A member of the Programme Advisory Committee of the National Translation Mission, Shri Bhattacharjee has been conferred excellence in translation award at the IBBY Congress, London 2012. He has recently co- edited a volume titled Barbed Wire Fence, a compilation of narratives of displacement from the Barak Valley of Assam. Shri Bhattacharjee is currently working as the Director of K.K. Birla Foundation. New Delhi.

A.J. Thomas (b. 1952) is an English post and fiction writer. He translates poetry, fiction, drama and non-fiction prose from Malayalam. He was Assistant Editor of Indian Literature from November 1997, Editor from April 2007 to October 2008, and Guest Editor from May 2011 he is also Senior consultant at IGNOU and is presently teaching English in Benghazi University, Ajdabiya Branch, Libya. Germination (poetry, 1989) Bhaskara Pattelar and Other Stories, (Manas, 1993), Reflections of a Hen in Her Last Hour and Other Stories (Penguin India), both Paul Zacharia's stories in translation, Ujjayini, a verse-novel (Rupa) and This Ancient Lyre, (both ONV Kurup's) a poetry collection he edited (Sahitya Akademi) are some of his noted contributions. He is represented in The Literary Review Indian Poetry (USA-2009) and the HarperCollins Book of English Poetry (2012). He is the recipient of Katha Award, AKMG Prize (which enabled him to tour USA, UK and Europe in 1997) and Vodafone Crossword Award (2007). He is also Senior Fellow, Department of Culture, Govt. of India and Honorary Fellow, Department of Culture, Government of South Korea and was invited as a Guest Speaker in writers' conferences in South Korea, Australia. Thailand and Nepal.

Foreword

It is with a sense of deep satisfaction and pride that I present Best of Indian Literature before the connoisseurs of literature.

It was Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru who defined the role of English in India as truly linking the expressions and articulations of people in the various regions of the country, weaving an all-India sensibility. This role of English is ironically a colonial legacy, which, like the railway network in our country, has stayed on for good, and has become really Indian over the years. Where Hindi could not reach, English has been presenting a cross-section of Indian literary writings that come alive in our bi-monthly English journal, Indian Literature.

The English language in India has been producing a powerful body of literature for nearly a century now, with the last three decades standing out as the period during which Indian English writing has gone truly international. The role of Indian Literature in fostering English as a creative medium, has to be recognised at this point.

Leafing through all the issues that came out over the fifty years from 1957 to 2007 for the purpose of making selections for the anthology, Best of Indian Literature, the editors would certainly have been amazed at the veritable treasure of literature the magazine has in its archives from almost all great masters from all Indian languages, through significant literary movements, to the works that belong to the contemporary period and to the pulsating present. I can say with absolute certainty that only Sahitya Akademi can maintain such a unique journal.

The first issue of Indian Literature had come out in October 1957. It was then a half-yearly journal. The fifty years from then till 2007-the period taken into account for the selection of material from the archives of Indian literature for the present book-is also the period during which major literary trends swept through our regional literatures. The modernist and the after-modernist 'phases, and the present couple of generations span this period. Thousands of celebrated Indian writers, many of them national literary icons, have been published in this journal. Works from the turn of the century and even before have found their place into these pages through translation into English. They reflect the ebb and flow of nationalist movements, the protracted Freedom Struggle, and after Independence, India gradually emerging as the largest democracy in the world.

I am sure that this two-volume, four-book set will adorn the library of every discerning reader in this country, and would certainly be exhibited and promoted in book-fairs abroad, taking the message of Indian literatures to the different corners of the world.

Contents

Volume-I Part-1

SHORT FICTION  
Aadhavan Sundaram - The Man who Died 1
Akhtar Mohi-ud-din - Light and Shade 9
Anita Desai - Private Tuitions by Mr. Bose 12
Annada Sankar Ray - Destination 17
Ashapurna Devi - Never Thought 24
Ashokamitran - Cricket 28
Atulananda Goswami - The Wait 32
Bibhutibhushan Banerjee - Verification 38
Bonophul - A Piece of Diamond 45
C. Rajagopalachari - Chettiar's Dream 52
Fakirmohan Senapati - Father and Son 54
Gopinath Mohanty - Ants 58
Hari Kant - And Time Stood Still 67
Hari Krishen Kaul - Sunshine 71
Himanshu Joshi - Between the Two Horizons 77
Intizar Husain - The Shadow 81
Jayakanthan - A Kind of Death 90
Jhaverchand Meghani - A Lamp of Humanity 95
Joginder Paul - Access 103
K.S. Duggal - All Alone 113
Kamaleshwar - The Search 121
Krishan Chander - Kalu Bhangi 127
Lakshminath Bezbarua - No I Won't 137
POETRY  
Abanindranath Tagore 141
Abdul Rahman Rahi 143
Ajit Barua 145
Ajneya 147
Akhtar-ul-Iman 150
Alokeranjan Dasgupta 152
Ali Sardar Jafri 154
Amrita Pritam 155
Arun Mitra 158
Arvind Krishna Mehrotra 160
Ashok Vajpeyi 162
B. Gopala Reddy 164
B.S. Mardhekar 168
Balamani Amma 171
Bhaben Baruah 172
Bhanuji Rao 174
Bharat Bhushan Agarwal 177
Bibhu Padhi 179
Bishnu Dey 180
Boyi Bhimanna 182
Buddhadeva Bose 184
C Narayana Reddy 187
Chandrakant Sheth 190
Chandrasekhar Patil 191
Changampuzha Krishna Pillai 192
D.R. Bendre 193
Devdas Chhotray 195
Devkant Barooah 196
Dharamvir Bharati 198
Dina Nath Nadim 199
Dinkar Dasgupta 203
Edapally Raghavan Pillai 204
Faiz Ahmed Faiz 205
Firaq Gorakhpuri 207
G Sankara Kurup 208
Ghulam Rasool Santosh 211
G.S. Shivarudrappa 216
Gangadhar Meher 219
Gauri Deshpande 221
Girdhar Rathi 223
Girija Kumar Mathur 225
Godavaris Mahapatra 227
Guru Prasad Mohanty 228
Hara Prasad Das 230
Harekrishna Deka 232
Harindra Dave 234
Harivansh Rai Bachchan 236
Hiren Bhattacharjya 238
Hiro Thakur 240
Jagannath Prasad Das 241
Jayant Pathak 243
Jayanta Mahapatra 245
Jibanananda Das 249
K. Ayy~ppa Paniker 251
K.G. Sankara Pillai 254
Keki N. Daruwalla 255
Keshav Malik 257
Keshav Meshram 259
Keshavsut 260
Kunwar Narain 263
Kusumagraj 265
Kuvempu 266
L. Samarendra Singh 268
l.abhshanker Thacker 270
M. Kamal 272
Makhan Lal Chaturvedi 273
Mangesh Padgaonkar 274
Manish Ghatak 275
Manjeet Tiwana 278
Margaret Chatterjee 280
Meena Alexander 281
Mohammad Iqbal 282
Mohan Singh 283
NON FICTION PROSE  
Aldous Huxley - Literature and Modern Life 285
Amiya Chakravarty - Pasternak: Poet of Humanity 290
Donald Junkins - Mountain Interval 294
Gopi Chand Narang - Ghalib and the Rebellion of 1857 299
Humayun Kabir - Tagore's Poetry 310
[awaharlal Nehru - Creative Writing in the Present Crisis 319
Leopold Sedar Senghor - Negritude 321
M.K. Gandhi - Tribute to Maxim Gorky 324
Nandalal Bose - The Discipline of Art 325

 

Volume-I Part-2

 

SHORT FICTION  
Manik Bandyopadhyay - Teacher 329
Manoj Das - The Bridge in the Moonlit Night 335
Manoje Basu - The Shaddock 340
Meena S. Kakodkar - The Hills Are Abloom 343
Mouni - Mother 351
Mulk Raj Anand -The Breath on the Mirror 356
N. Kunjamohan Singh -The Taste of Hilsa 360
N.P. Muhammad - The Wings of Night 364
O.Y. Vijayan - The Rocks 369
P. Padmaraju - Coolies 375
Prabhat Kumar Mukherjee - The Fulfilment of a Vow 381
Premendra Mitra - The Earthquake 387
Pudumaipithan - Cavern of Enlightenment 391
Pundalik Narayan Naik - The Turtle 395
Qurratulain Hyder - The Sermons of Haji Gul Baba Bektashi 399
Raji Narasimhan - Ration Office 405
Rajinder Singh Bedi - Give Me Your Sorrows 408
Ramapada Chaudhuri - In a Group 424
Ramkumar - The Sounds 430
S.K. Pottekkatt - The Mail Carrier 436
Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay - The Woman and the Serpent 442
Thi. Janakiraman - Concert 446
Upendranath Ashk - The Dark Saahabs 453
Upendranath Jha 'Vyas' - Sulky Son-in-law 459
Ved Rahi - When Is Didi Coming? 464
Yashpal - Grief 469
POETRY  
N. Kumaran Asan 473
N. V. Krishna Warrier 476
Narayan Surve 477
Naresh Guha 478
Navakanta Barua 480
Nilmani Phookan 483
Nirala 485
Niranjan Bhagat 488
Nirendranath Chakrabarty 490
Nirmalprabha Bardoloi 492
Nissim Ezekiel 494
O.N.V. Kurup 497
P. Lal 499
P. Lankesh 501
Pabitro Mukhopadhyay 505
Padma Sachdev 507
Prabhjot Kaur 509
Pratibha Satpathy 512
Premendra Mitra 513
R. Parthasarathy 516
Raghunath Chaudhuri 518
Raghuvir Sahay 520
Rajendra Kishore Panda 523
Rajendra Shah 526
Ramachandra Sharma 529
Ramakanta Rath 532
Ramdhari Singh Dinkar 535
Ravji Patel 537
Sadananda Rege 539
Samar Sen 541
Sarveshwar Dayal Saxena 543
Shahryar 546
Shakti Chattopadhyay 547
Shamser Bahadur Singh 548
Shiv K Kumar 549
Shivamangal Singh 'Suman' 550
Shrikant Verma 554
Sitakant Mahapatra 557
Sitanshu Yashaschandra 560
Sourindra Barik 563
Subhas Mukhopadhyay 564
Subramania Bharathi 567
Sudhindranath Datta 570
Sugathaku mari 573
Sumitranandan Pant 575
Sundara Ramaswamy 576
Sunil Gangopadhyay 579
Surendra Jha 'Suman' 581
Surjit Patar 584
Th. Ibopishak Singh 587
Ulloor S. Parameswara Iyer 588
Umashankar Joshi 591
Vaidyanath Mishra 'Yatri' 594
Vallatho]" 595
Vallikannan 598
Vasant Bapat 600
Vasdev 'Mohi' 602
Vinda Karandikar 604
Vyloppilli Sreedhara Menon 605
Y Ibomcha Singh 607
NON FICTION PROSE  
Per Hallstrom - Tagore and the Nobel Prize 609
R.K. Dasgupta - G.S. Lebedev: The Founder of the Bengali Theatre 615
R.K. Narayan - What Shakespeare Means to Me 623
Rahul Sankrityayan - Tibetan Studies 625
S. Radhakrishnan - Adi Granth 640
Suniti Kumar Chatterjee - Adivasi Literatures of India 645
Toru Dutt - Letters 668
V. Raghavan - The Aesthetics of Ancient Indian Drama 674
Victoria Ocampo - West Needs East: Tagore on the Banks of the River Plate 679


Volume-II Part-1

SHORT FICTION  
A.Madhavan - Compensation 1
Amitabha Dev Choudhury - Morninger 6
Anand - The Tower of Victory 12
Arupa Patangia Kalita - Two Days from Phantom's Diary 19
Baburao Bagul - The Scavenger 27
Barna - Annachi 33
Bashir Akthar - Where Water is Scarce 37
Bhabendranath Saikia - The Monsoon 43
Bhisham Sahni - The Portrait 49
Birendra Kumar Bhattacharyya - Makon's God 56
Budhadeva Bose - The Story of Birupaksha Deb 62
C.Ayyappan - Spectral Speech 67
Chandrakanta - The Black Snow 71
Devanooru Mahadeva - The Ones who Sold Themselves 79
Dibyendu Pallt - A Journey Through the Last Time 84
Ganga Prasad Vimal - Farewell to You 93
Gangadhar Gadgil - Refugee City 97
Gita Hariharan - Retrospective 104
Gulabdas Broker - Music when Soft Voices Die 108
Indira Goswarni - The Offspring 112
JayantKaikini - Dust 122
Jeelani Bano - The Surety 125
K.Saraswathy Amma - The Forbidden Path 130
Kamala Das - Marine Drive 135
Karur Nilkantha Pillai - Utuppan's Well 141
Kishori Charan Das - I Can Make It 144
Kulvant Singh Virk - Your Milk, This! 148
Lalithambika Antherjanam - The Decree of Fate 152
M.M.Gurung - Desires, (and A Corpse) 159
M.Mukundan - Delhi 1981 161
M.T.Vasudevan Nair - The Day after the Downpour 165
Mahasweta Devi - The Son 175
Mahender Singh Sarna - Bridge over the Rapti 184
Manipadma - Didn't I Know It! 189
Manjul Bhagat - Step 191
Mannu Bhandari - Encircling Arms 197
Masti Venkatesha Iyengar - The Last Day of Vamadeva 205
Mridula Garg - Shadows 212
POETRY  
A.K.Ramanujan 217
Abdul Rahman 220
Ambar Bahraichi 222
Amitabha Gupta 225
Anis Uz Zaman 228
Anitha Thampi 230
Anju Narzari 234
Anubhav Tulasi 238
Anupama Basumatary 241
Anuradha Mahapatra 245
Anvar Ali 247
Archana Sahni 252
Arjan Hasid 255
Arun Kolatkar 257
Attoor Ravivarma 258
Balraj Komal 261
Chandra Prakash Deval 263
Chennaveera Kanavi 266
Desmond L. Kharmawphlang 268
Durga Prasad Panda 271
Elangbam Nilakanta Singh 272
Fahmida Riaz 274
Ghulam Mohd. Sheikh 275
Gnanakoothan 276
Guizar 279
H.L.Pushpa 282
H.S.Shiva Prakash 285
Harbhajan Singh 288
Hirendra Nath Outta 291
Indira Sant 293
Irfan Siddiqui 294
Jayant Parmar 296
Jiban Narah 299
K.S.Narasimha Swamy 303
K.Satchidanandan 309
K.Siva Reddy 312
Kaifi Azmi 317
Kamala Das 317
Kanji Patel 321
Karthika Nair 324
Keshav Mahanta 328
Khaleel Mamoon 329
Kundan Mali 333
Kynpham Singh Nongkynrih 335
Lal Singh Oil 337
Lekshmy Rajeev 338
M.R.Kamala 340
Mahender Misir 343
Majrooh Sultanpuri 345
Malkhan Singh 347
Mallika Sengupta 348
Mamang Oai 351
Mandakranta Sen 355
Mangal Rathod 357
Mangalesh Oabral 359
Manushya Puthiran 362
Meena Kandasamy 364
Mona Zote 367
Mu. Metha 370
DRAMA  
Bhikhari Thakur - Gabar Ghichor 371
Chandrashekar Kambar - Alibaba and Forty Thieves 382
NON FICTION PROSE  
Adoor Gopalakrishnan - Growing Up with Books 421
G.Parameshwaran Pillai - Excerpts from Londo·n and Paris: 427
Through Indian Spectacles  
Jayanta Mahapatra - Poetry as Freedom: The Door 435
Kunwar Narain - The Pressures of the Ancient Past, 439
Redefinition of Tradition  
Manager Pandey - Truth Fears No Test 442

 

Volume-II Part-2
SHORT FICTION  
N.S.Madhavan - The Fourth World 451
Naa. Parthasarathy - A Fair Deal 458
Nabneeta Dev Sen - Stand Back. Please, It's the Nobel! 462
Nanjil Nadan - Insolent Might 483
Nayantara Sahgal - Crucify Me 487
Nirmal Verma - A Splinter of the Sun 491
P.Lankesh - The Molten Time 495
Padma Sachdev - Are You OK Bu? 505
Paul Zacharia - A Day's Work 511
Popati R.Hiranandani - Neither Song, Nor Fiction 515
Poornachandra Tejaswi - The Golden Dream 519
Premchand - Mandir, Masjid 524
Rachakonda Vishwanatha Sastry - Two Children 532
Rajendra Yadav - Tension 539
Ritwik Ghatak - Confession 545
Saadat Hasan Manto - Black Marginalia 551
Samaresh Basu - Adab 560
Sara Aboobacker - The Scorching Sun 565
Sarah Joseph - Inside Every Woman Writer 570
Satchidananda Raut Roy - The Dead Flower 574
Satyajit Ray - My Useless Uncle 578
Shantinath Desai - The Mediators 583
Sharankumar Limbale - Blue Flags 594
Srikrishna Alanahalli - The Bond 597
Sudhir Naoroibarn - Nungshitombi and I 604
Sujata - Liberation 606
Sundara Ramaswamy - I Don't Understand 608
Sundri Uttamchandani - This City 614
T. Padmanabhan - Gowri 618
Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai - In the Flood 623
U.R.Ananthamurthy - Stallion of the Sun 627
Y.K.N. - The Colonel 645
Vaasanthi - The Journey 647
Vishnu Prabhakar - Anniversary 653
POETRY  
N.G.Unnikrishnan 658
Nagarjun 662
Namdeo Dhasal 666
Namita Nayak 670
Neela Padmanabhan 671
Nida Fazli 678
Nilim Kumar 680
P.P. Ramachandran 683
P.T. Narasimhachar 686
Paash 694
Pravasini Mahakud 696
Prayag Saikia 699
Priya Sarukkai Chabria 701
Radha R. 704
Rajeev Baruah 707
Rajendra Bhandari 710
Ranajit Das 712
Ranjit Hoskote 715
Ranjita Nayak 719
Robin S. Ngangom 722
S. Joseph 726
Salah uddin Parvez 730
Salma 733
Samarendra Sengupta 737
Sameer Tanti 740
Sangliana 744
Sant Ram Udasi 748
Saroj Mohanty 749
Saurav Saikia 751
Savithri Rajeevan 754
Senapati Pradyumna Keshari 760
Seshendra Sarma 762
Shefali Deb Barma 766
Shimanta Bhattacharyya 769
Sirpi Balasubramaniam 772
Soubhagyabanta Maharana 775
Subodh Sarkar 776
Sutapa Sengupta 781
Susheela Takbbore 784
Thachom Poyil Rajeevan 785
Utpal K. Basu 790
Vanita 792
Vijayalakshmi 795
Viswanatha Satyanarayana 798
Vivek Narayanan 801
Yoseph Macwan 803
DRAMA  
H.S. Shiva Prakash - Madhavi 804
P. Balachandran - Poor Usman 816
R. Narendra Prasad - Sauparnika 829
NON FICTION PROSE  
Mulk Raj Anand - From the Progressive to the Post-modern 856
Namvar Singh - Decolonising the Indian Mind 863
Nirmal Verma - Apne Desh Vapsi 869
Rangarao Bhongle - A Semiotic Study of Dalit Poetry in Marathi 874
Robin S Ngangom - Poetry in the Time 879

 

Sample Pages

Volume-I Part-1





Volume-I Part-2





Volume-II Part-1





Volume-II Part-2




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