Colonial Karma The Problem of Action in the Indian English Novel [Hardcover]

Colonial Karma tracks the Indian English novel from its colonial origins to the present, each chapter focusing on a particular historical moment. Linking the novel's development with that of Indian cultural nationalism, it argues that nationalism seeks to solve the problem of action for its middle-class subject by redefining the Bhagavad-Gita's concept of karma for political purposes. Two figures serve to exemplify this problem: Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Gita and Saleem in Midnight's Children . After considering influential early novels in Indian languages, Colonial Karma discusses novels in English by Narayan, Anand, Rao, Anita Desai, Salman Rushdie, Shashi Deshpande and Githa Hariharan.Introduction: 'Figuring' Action in the Indian English Novel Solving the Problem of Action in the Colonial Novel, 1864-1919 Shaping a National Subject of Action, 1920-1947 Colliding Codes: Post-Independence Alienation, 1947-1980 Turning Victim into Protagonist? Midnight's Children and the National Narratives of the Eighties 'Returning' in the Eighties and Nineties: The Promise and Perils of Women's Agency Conclusion: Recast(e)ing Genre in the Twenty-First CenturyJOSNA REGE is Associate Professor of English at Dartmouth College, USA.