A Short history of Indian writing in English - Nobel Prizes

Beginnings of English language and literature in India –

The British East India company introduced English in the 17th century for administrative work which gradually spread amongst Indians; first English newspaper and travelogue emerged in late 18th century.

The beginnings of Indian Writing in EnIglish (IWE) can be traced to the nineteenth century, to the time of Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1774-1833), the enlightened social reformer who emphasized the importance of education in English if India wished to be a leading nation of the world. To Sake Dean Mahomet, an Indian traveller and entrepreneur, goes the credit of writing Travels of Dean Mahomet (1794), the first book in English by an Indian author.

Mimetic Period –

Lasting from 1850-1900, Indian writers in this period imitated styles of British romantic literature showing strong influences of nationalism tied to poetic romanticism.

The century also produced outstanding poets like Henry Derozio, (1809–1831), Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1824-1873), and Toru Dun (1856 – 1877) who wrote poetry in English and French. Both Derozio and Toru Dutt showed great promise and tragically died very young. Toru Dutt's poem,

Absorptive Period -

Our Casuarina Tree, is believed to be autobiographical. Sarojini Naidu, Tagore's contemporary and an active figure in politics, left her mark in literature too by writing romantic poetry that earned her the sobriquet The Nightingale of India'. Her brother Harindranath Chattopadhyay was an other renowned poet. Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950), mystic, philosopher and poet, wrote his highly rated epic Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol (1950-51), one of the longest poems in IWE.

The outstanding names in later IWE poetry are Nissim Ezekiel, Dorn Moraes, A.K Ramanujan, Kamala Das and Vikram Seth.

Spanning 1900-1947, literature absorbed romantic styles but dealt more with themes of Indian renaissance, spirituality showing writers like Tagore, Sarojini Naidu gaining prominence.

Post-Independence Period –

After 1947, new English-educated generation of Indian writers like Anita Desai, Rohinton Mistry, Vikram Seth etc. emerged who increasingly Anglicized Indian literary themes and styles.

Themes in Indian Writing in English – Prominent thematic occupations have been nationalism during colonial era, aspects of Indian heritage and diaspora, women's issues in a changing social landscape.

Current Trends and Recognition – Contemporary Indian literature in English now counts among the most richly recognized writing worldwide evident in rising transnational popularity, translations and global awards.

First Nobel Prize

Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s work, Rajmohan's Wife (serialised in 1834 but published in book form posthumously in 1864), is acknowledged to be the first Indian novel in English. Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), the pride of India, is the outstanding literary figure of this age. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 and remains the only Indian to have won the coveted award for literature.

Dhan Copal Mukherji (1890-1936), was one of the first popular Indian writers in English and won the Newbery Medal in the US for his Gay Neck, the Story of a Pigeon (1927). An important contribution to IWE was made by P.lal (1929-2010), a poet, essayist, translator and publisher, who established 'Writers Workshop', a press for Indian English writing, in 1958.

The 1930s saw the emergence of the formidable trio of novelists, Raja Rao, R.K Narayan and Mulk Raj Anand who went on to gain international fame and prestige. The novels of Raja Rao (1908-2006) with their rural settings won praise for the Indianness of their themes and his Kanthapura (1938) wooed the West with its unique story telling methods. His later works like the semi-autobiographical The Serpent and the Rope (1960) and Cat and Shakespeare (1965) established his credentials as one of India's finest stylists. R.K Narayan (1906-2001) was introduced to the western world by Graham Greene who found great talent in his first novel Swami and Friends (1935) and helped him find a publisher, R.K Narayan created a fictional town, Malgudi, as the locale for most of his novels and his simple style and realistic narration won him many admirers. The Bachelor of Arts (1937), The Guide (1958) The Man-eater of Malgudi (1961) and Grandmother's Tale (1992) are some of his famous novels. The realistic novels of Mulk Raj Anand (1905-2004) like The Untouchable (1935) and Coolie (1936) reflect the harsh social divides that are the bane of India.

G V Desani (1909-2000) is another important IWE writer whose cult novel All About H. Hatter, (1948) about an Anglo-Malay man in search for enlightenment took the world by storm and was compared to James Joyce's Ulysses.

The spirit of an independent India that was struggling to establish an identity of its own was captured by later novelists like Manohar Malgonkar in his Distant Drum and The Devil's Wind, Kamala Markandaya in Some Inner Fury, Anita Desai in Clear Light of Day and Nayantara Sahgal in From Fear Set Free.

History of Nobel Prize Winner

The Nobel Prizes are awarded annually since 1901 in recognition of academic, cultural, or scientific advances in six categories: Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, Peace, and Economics.

Between 1901 and 2022, the Nobel Prizes and the Prize in Economic Sciences have been awarded 609 times. The recipients sometimes share a Nobel prize if they collaborated on a joint work or made similar discoveries contemporaneously. So far, 969 individuals and 27 organizations have been honored with the Nobel Prize and the Economic Sciences.

Of the 969 individuals, 58 are women. Marie Curie won it twice.

John Bardeen is the only Nobel laureate who has been awarded the Physics Prize twice. Linus Pauling won the Nobel prizes in both Chemistry and Peace. Organizations like UNHCR, IPCC, EU etc have received the Nobel Peace Prize.

From 1901 till date, the Nobel Prize across 6 categories has been awarded 609 times to 996 Nobel laureates that comprise 969 individuals and 27 unique organizations. The numbers include 58 women and only 2 people ever winning the prize twice.

List of Nobel Prize winners from India:

12 Indian persons who have been awarded the Nobel Prize so far:

12 laureates of Indian origin or citizenship have been awarded the Nobel Prize in various categories like Economics, Peace, Chemistry, Medicine, Physics and Literature over the years. Some prominent names include Rabindranath Tagore, C.V. Raman, Amartya Sen, Abhijit Banerjee etc. This highlights India's contributions to science, economics and peace efforts globally.

List of Nobel Prize winners from the last 10 years (2013 - 2022) Nobel Prize Winners Worldwide:

Booker of Bookers – Salman Rushdie

The entry of Salmon Rushdie into the literary scene marked the beginning of a new era in IWE. His path-breaking novel Midnight's Children (1981) became a book for the Booker, winning the Booker Prize in 1981, Booker of Bookers in 1992 and the Best of the Bookers in. 2008. Rushdie used an innovative hybrid language in which English mingled easily with Indian terms to represent the complexities of India. His style has been described as magic realism and his other novels are The Satanic Verses (1988), The Moor's Last Sigh 0995), Fury (2001), Two Years Eight Months and Tern-eight (2015). The Golden House (2017) and Quichotte (2019). His latest novel, Victory City (2023) is the story of a young girl named Pampa Kampana, who, after witnessing the death of her mother, ac-quires divine powers and conjures into existence a glorious metropolis called Bisnaga, in which women resist patriarchal rule and religious tolerance prevails, at least for a while.

Booker Prizes

Rushdie triggered off a Booker Prize rush and since then three Indians have won the Booker - Arundhati Roy for The God of Small Things (1997), Kiran Desai for The Inheritance of Loss (2006) and Aravind Adiga for The White Tiger (2008). Jhumpa Lahiri, the Indian American writer won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000 for Interpreter of Maladies (1999) and VS Naipaul, the Trinidadian-British writer of Indian descent won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001.

A host of names jostle for attention in the Indian literary pantheon. Shashi Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel (1989) is a satirical take on the Mahabharata. Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy (1993) at 1474 pages is one of the longest novels.

Arundati Roy (First Indian author to win the Booker Prize)

Here are some key details about acclaimed Indian author Arundati Roy:

Books Written:

She won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her novel "The God of Small Things". This was the first time an Indian author won the award. This was semi-autobiographical work which explored themes like women's experiences and India's caste system. It won her the 1997 Booker Prize.

Her next major published work was the non-fiction essay collection ‘The Algebra of Infinite Justice’ (2001) which covered topics like India's social injustices and global issues.

Her second novel 'The Ministry of Utmost Happiness' came out in 2017 after 20 years which was also a critical success about power structures in India's democracy.

Other works include more non-fiction essay collections like 'Things That Can and Cannot Be Said', 'The End of Imagination', 'Listening to Grasshoppers' etc.

Awards and Honours:

Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997 for 'The God of Small Things'

Sydney Peace Prize in 2004 for her advocacy on social justice issues

Norman Mailer Prize in 2011

Sahitya Akademi Award in 2006, but she declined it.

Arvind Adiga

A writer and journalist whose first novel, The White Tiger, won the 2008 Man Booker Prize, Aravind Adiga is one of the greatest literary talents of recent times. Since then, Adiga has gone on to publish two more highly regarded works, Between the Assassinations, a collection of short stories, and Last Man in Tower, his second novel. His works are marked by a linguistic and thematic density that sees him weave complex narratives and multiple narrators into his tales, which combine to create a vivid portrayal of the rich mosaic of Indian life. Amnesty published in 2020 speaks of the pathetic condition of immigrants. It was shortlisted for the 2021 Miles Franklin Award.

Kiran Desai

Kiran Desai's first novel, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, was launched in 1998 and won widespread praise for its sensitive portrayal of rural life in India. However, its success was dwarfed by Desai's second novel The Inheritance of toss, which won the Man Booker Prize in 2006, and the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award in 2007. This epic tale takes on the themes of post-colonialism and globalization as they relate to a modern India, in which the colonial legacy and the modernizing and mogenising forces of globalisation are inextricably linked. A lyrical but cerebral work, it is considered a masterpiece of 21st century Indian literature,

Janpith Award

It is India's highest literary award presented annually by the Bharatiya Jnanpith trust to an author for their "outstanding contribution towards literature".

It was instituted in 1961. The first recipient was G Sankara Kurup who received the award in 1965 for his collection of poems.

Amitav Ghosh

Amitav Ghosh was conferred the 54th Janpith award in December 2018 and is the first Indian writer in English to have been chosen for this honour. Ghosh is the author of The Circle of Reason (his 1986 debut novel). The Shadow Lines (1998), The Calcutta Chromosome (1995), The Glass Palace (2000), The Hungry Tide (2004), and Sea of Poppies (2008), the first volume of The Ibis trilogy, set in the 1830s, just before the Opium War, which encapsulates the colonial history of the East. Ghosh's River of Smoke (2011), is the second volume of The this trilogy. The third, Flood of Fire, completing the trilogy, was published 28 May 2015 to positive reviews.

His new work of non-fiction, Smoke And Ashes: A Writer's Journey Through Opium’s Hidden Histories (2023), examines how the drug and its commoditization by colonial Britain has shaped the world for centuries.

Pulitzer Award

It is one of America’s most prestigious awards in fields including journalism, literature, music, etc.

Pulitzer Prizes were established in 1917 as per the will of Joseph Pulitzer.

Some recent Pulitzer Prize winners for fiction include:

2022: The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen

2021: The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich

2020: The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri is an Indian-American author who has succeeded in finding critical acclaim. Her debut short story collection Interpreter of Maladies won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and her 2013 novel The Lowland managed to make it to the shortlist of the 2013 Man Booker Prize. Her works are plangent portrayals of the experience of immigration, and attempt to bridge the cultural and social gap between her adopted America and the India of her parents and ancestors. Translating Myself and Others (2022) is a collection of candid and disarmingly personal essays by Jhumpa lahiri, who reflects on her emerging identity as a translator as well as a writer in two languages.

Abraham Verghese

Abraham Verghese identifies himself primarily as a physician, medicine is his first love — and then as a writer. Born to Indian parents in Ethiopia and currently a Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, Dr. Verghese is known for his focus on healing in an era where technology often overwhelms the human side of medicine. After two non-fiction books — My Own Country and The Tennis Partner — his debut novel, Cutting for Stone (2009), a family saga that moves between Ethiopia and New York, became a bestseller, His latest, The Covenant of Water, is the story of three generations of one family in the Christian community of Parambil, along the Malabar Coast of South India, a “child's fantasy world of rivulets and canals" that has "spawned a people — Malayalis — as mobile as the liquid medium around them.” The novel encompasses intense passion and tragedy, as well as a medical mystery: The family suffers from an illness, or curse, which they call the “Condition," that has caused death by drowning in every generation.