Contemporary Indian Literature

[Gorki]

Hello people,
Who do you associate with contemporary Indian Literature? Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Seth, Jhumpa Lahiri, Kiran Desai, Aravind Adiga? What about their writings interest you the most?

[Gorki]

The authors mentioned above are the prominent Indian novelists. A few have been conferred the Booker as well. However there are names which might be lesser known outside India,but are anyway masterpieces. Includes works by R.K Narayan/Khushwant Singh et al. If any of you folks have any knowledge of that, please do share!

[Bustrofedon]

If someone said "Quick, name an Indian author!" I would answer Rushdie. I read Satanic Verses years ago out of curiosity about the hubbub over it. Recently I have read Desai (Kiran) and Adiga. I enjoyed these last two for their insights into the culture and everyday realities of Indian life. Having read only the Ramayana I was in need of some updating. I guess if Lahiri is on the list then maybe Naipul should be, too.

[cafolini]

What is needed is a move beyond tradition, nothing less than a reform movement to bring the core concepts of Islam into the modern age, a Muslim Reformation to combat not only the jihadist ideologues but also the dusty, stifling seminaries of the traditionalists, throwing open the windows to let in much-needed fresh air. (...) It is high time, for starters, that Muslims were able to study the revelation of their religion as an event inside history, not supernaturally above it. (...) Broad-mindedness is related to tolerance; open-mindedness is the sibling of peace. ~ Salman Rushdie

[Gorki]

Adiga! Which one did you read? The White Tiger or the Last man in Tower?

[Gorki]

How about R.K. Narayan? Has anyone of you heard about his works?

[Bustrofedon]

Adiga! Which one did you read? The White Tiger or the Last man in Tower?

I read White Tiger.

[Seasider]

What about Arundhati Roy who won the Booker Prize for "The God of Small Things" ? I thought it was a wonderful book.

[ennison]

I agree about Roy. Mistry although abroad is very Indian. I have never read Seth but Allan Massie a wonderful Scottish writer and very perceptive critic has praised him and as I have seldom found Massie's judgement wrong then Seth must be pretty good.

[osho]

I wonder why only a few Indian writers are named here who write in English and earned international acclaims and the rest who write in their vernaculars got overshadowed. Today things are judged from a western perspective. Although I do not know any Indian writers writing famously in their native languages. Of late I have read an article written by Arvind Adiga who shed light on a few Indian writers, I forgot the names who are writing in some south Indian languages and one of them got nominated for even the Booker Prize. I cannot understand why no consideration is given to any other great minds from India who did their marvelous jobs but when their works are looked at through only the English lens there has been no justice to those who write for the mass not for the few westernized elite class of the upper crust of the Indian society.

[Seasider]

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, or Zimbabwe.
So any Indian writers' books must be either available in translation, or originally written in English to be nominated. The solution is for an Indian prize to be awarded for work in the vernacular.But what is the vernacular of India?