Originality & Imitation: Indianess in the Novels of Kamala Marjabdaya

This critical study of the work of Kamala Markandaya is a comprehensive assessment of her entire canon–an output that spans ten novels produced over a period of three decades. With emphasis upon the presence or absence of the quality of ‘Indianness’ in her fiction, this analysis examines those aspects of her writing that reflect dependence upon western genres and styles of literary creativity as well as those that reveal indigenously Indian sources of inspiration. In particular, this critique dissects the influence of her upbringing and early experiences in India together with those gleaned following her emigration to England. Drawing liberally upon Markandaya’s own comments on her life and work gathered from personal conversations with the novelist, this book explores every facet of Markandaya’s creativity from theme and character to language and setting. Using a form of close textual analysis, the author discovers that where Markandaya utilizes her imagination to flesh out her novels, she often distorts reality; where, however, she relies on personal observation and individual experience, she both enlightens and delights. Invaluable to both the causal reader and the serious scholar of early Indo-English literature, this book makes an original and important contribution to Kamala Markandaya scholarship, in particular, and to the body of Indian post-colonial literary criticism, in general.