Indian Literature

The earliest works of Indian literature were the Sanskrit epics Ramayana and Mahabharata that

appeared towards the end of the 2nd millennium BCE.  Classical Sanskrit literature developed
rapidly during the first few centuries of the first millennium BCE (e.g. Kālidāsa wrote the
epic: Raghuvamsha), as did the Tamil Sangam literature (poet Thiruvalluvar), and the Pāli Canon
(e.g. Jataka Tales). Literature in Kannada and Telugu appeared in the 6th and 11th centuries
respectively.[2] Later, literature in Marathi, Assamese, Odia, Bengali and Maithili appeared.
Thereafter literature in various dialects of Hindi, Persian and Urdu began to appear as well. Early
in the 20th century, Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore became India's first Nobel laureate in
literature. Today in Indian literature, there are two major literary awards; these are the Sahitya
Akademi Award and the Jnanpith Award.

Indian English literature began with the works of Michael Madhusudan Dutt followed by R. K.
Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao who contributed to Indian fiction in the 1930s.The next
generation of writers were set in the 1980s and 90s with the like of Salman Rushdie. Rushdie,
with his famous work Midnight's Children (Booker Prize 1981, Booker of Bookers 1992, and
Best of the Bookers 2008), ushered in a new trend of writing. Along with him came other writers
like Anita Desai, Kiran Desai, Arundhati Roy, Nayantara Sehgal, Ruskin Bond, Shashi Tharoor,
VIkram Seth and Amitav Ghosh, who ushered in a new era in Indian English fiction.

Poetry began with the like of Rabindranath Tagore, Sarojini Naidu and even goes back to Toru
Dutt. Notable 20th Century authors of English poetry in India include Dilip Chitre, Kamala
Das, Eunice De Souza, Nissim Ezekiel, Shiv K. Kumar, Arun Kolatkar, P. Lal, Jayanta
Mahapatra, Dom Moraes, Gieve Patel, A. K. Ramanujan, and Madan Gopal Gandhi among
several others.

The younger generation of poets writing in English include Smita Agarwal, Jeet Thayil, Jaydeep

Sarangi, Mani Rao, Jerry Pinto, K. V. Dominic, Meena Kandasamy, Nalini Priyadarshni, Gopi
Kottoor,  Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Vihang A. Naik, Anuradha Bhattacharyya and K Srilata.
Modern expatriate Indian poets writing in English include Agha Shahid Ali, Sujata Bhatt, Tabish
Khair and Vikram Seth.