Literary Radicalism in India: Gender, Nation and the Transition to Independance

While most readers of contemporary Indian literature in English and in translation are familiar with the idea of ‘freedom at midnight’, much less is known about the turbulent period of artistic and cultural transformation that characterized the years leading up to and following Independence in 1947. This study examines one of the most influential-and yet relatively unexamined- literary movements in the twentieth century on the Progressive Writers Association during India’s transition from colony to nation, Literary Radicalism in India examines in detail some of the most important and controversial works of Indian literature. Featuring historicized reading of the fiction, essays and films of such prominent figures as Rashid Jahan, Sajjad Zaheer, Ismat Chughtai, Saadat Hasan Manto and Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, the book examines the connections between aesthetics and politics in the context of nation formation in India and Pakistan. It argues that gender, in this context, was not reducible to questions of ‘representing women’ but that it was a constitutive point of contestation in the struggle to define ‘India’. This thoroughly researches study is a must for all those interested in the impact of nationalism, feminism and social mocements on literature, and provides a timely intervention into current debates about Marxism, nationalism and modernity.