Subaltern Spaces in New Literatures: An Anthology Presented to K. Damodar Rao

New Literatures in English coming from former colonies have occupied the centre stage in World Literatures. These could boast of a rich, diverse corpus of literatures with decolonization as defining principle. Also known as Commonwealth Literature, these writers from Africa, Canada, the Caribbean, and India have mostly dealt with the historical past reinterpreting it; with the immediate issues donning role of commentators; and with social-political upheavals chronicling the contemporary history. The postcolonial writers being excellent story tellers they have come up with remarkable works of art drawing upon their rich oral heritage. The present book offers glimpses of the rich diversity found in New Literatures. An interesting aspect of this is the importance given to translated work from regional literatures that have become an integral part of Indian Writing in English filling the void of social dimension there. As such, themes like caste marginalisation and social discrimination, migration, oral narratives, subversion of language, could be found in the anthology. The writers covered are Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Rabindranath Tagore, Mahasweta Devi, Peter Abrahams, J.M. Coetzee, George Ryga, Alice Munro, Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Arundhati Roy, Chetan Bhagat, Asif Currimbhoy, Mahesh Dattani, Volga and Yendluri Sudhakar. The book, focusing on a mosaic of themes centring around an aesthetics of resistance is Kakatiya University Scholars’ tribute to K. Damodar Rao sir’s passion for and commitment to New Literatures, his areas of teaching and research.