The present book on the two Indian English women Novelists, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and Kamala Markandaya, makes an indepth study on the portrayal of cross-cultural interaction in their representative works. It makes an interesting and valuable contribution to the study of the novelists who share much in common as women, artists and social critics because of their peculiar positions-one an outside-insider and the other inside-outsider. The main argument of the book is persuasively sustained and supported by the author. Dr Chadha convincingly demonstrates how the changing nature of the writers’ lives has influenced their artistic vision. Their characters hold a mirror to the middle class. A discerning intelligence, a quality of imaginative realism and an attempt to evaluate personal relationship’ marks the substance of their novels. Written with critical insight and interpretative acumen, the book points, out the achievement art. Whereas Markandaya is predominantly a novelist of ‘personal relations’, her individual characters are silhouetted against an appropriate social setting, which lends an authentic touch to the delineation of the theme. Jhabvala’s wit and irony, charm and literary brilliance, in expounding her social comedy, constitutes the principal element of her art. The book, it is hoped, will be of immense use to scholars and teachers alike.
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