Acknowledgement:

I am very thankful to miss Sushmita Chakraborty (Faculty Guide, SXC Ranchi) for
her kind support and guiding me to complete my assignment on completely
morally and inaugurating topic “Indian Writers and their contribution in Indian
Literature”.

I am thankful to Faiz Ahmad Faiz (friend) who has assigned me my work schedule
for completing the project.

I am also thankful to Wikipedia for providing the information of the searched

writers and has supported me to complete my assignment which is a part of my
coming promotion exams of intermediate and to learn a lot about the authors.

This project also contains some of my knowledge as printed and I have tried up to
my level to make this project capable of accepting for attractive. I hope that this
assignment contains the required words, knowledge and information.

Anant Prakash
Contents:

Title Page……
Acknowledgement………..

Page no.
Indian English Literature 01
R.K.Narayan 02
Mulk Raj Anand 03
Raja Rao 04
Rabindranath Tagore 05
Sarojini Naidu 06
Vikram Seth 07
Anita Desai 08

Conclusion…………..
Indian English literature
Indian English literature (IEL) refers to the body of work by writers in India who write in the English language and
whose native or co-native language could be one of the numerous languages of India. It is frequently referred to
as Indo-Anglian literature.  As a category, this production comes under the broader realm of postcolonial literature-
the production from previously colonisedcountries such as India.

History

IEL has a relatively recent history, it is only one and a half centuries old. The first book written by an Indian in English

was by Sake Dean Mahomet, titled Travels of Dean Mahomet; Mahomet's travel narrative was published in 1793 in

England. In its early stages it was influenced by the Western art form of the novel. Early Indian writers used English

unadulterated by Indian words to convey an experience which was essentially Indian. Raja Rao'sKanthapura is Indian

in terms of its storytelling qualities. Rabindranath Tagore wrote in Bengali and English and was responsible for the

translations of his own work into English. Dhan Gopal Mukerji was the first Indian author to win a literary award in

the United States. Nirad C. Chaudhuri, a writer of non-fiction, is best known for his The Autobiography of an

Unknown Indian where he relates his life experiences and influences. P. Lal, a poet, translator, publisher and

essayist, founded a press in the 1950s for Indian English writing, Writers Workshop.

R.K. Narayan is a writer who contributed over many decades and who continued to write till his death recently. He

was discovered by Graham Greenein the sense that the latter helped him find a publisher in England. Graham

Greene and Narayan remained close friends till the end. Similar to Thomas Hardy's Wessex, Narayan created the

fictitious town of Malgudi where he set his novels. Some criticise Narayan for the parochial, detached and closed

world that he created in the face of the changing conditions in India at the times in which the stories are set. Others,

such as Graham Greene, however, feel that through Malgudi they could vividly understand the Indian experience.

Narayan's evocation of small town life and its experiences through the eyes of the endearing child protagonist

Swaminathan in Swami and Friends is a good sample of his writing style. Simultaneous with Narayan's pastoral

idylls, a very different writer, Mulk Raj Anand, was similarly gaining recognition for his writing set in rural India; but his
stories were harsher, and engaged, sometimes brutally, with divisions of caste, class and religion.

Later history
Among the later writers, the most notable is Salman Rushdie, born in India, now living in the United Kingdom.
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. He used a hybrid language – English generously peppered with
Indian terms – to convey a theme that could be seen as representing the vast canvas of India. He is usually
categorised under the magic realism mode of writing most famously associated with Gabriel García Márquez

Vikram Seth, author of A Suitable Boy (1994) is a writer who uses a purer English and more realistic themes. Being a

self-confessed fan of Jane Austen, his attention is on the story, its details and its twists and turns.Vikram Seth is

notable both as an accomplished novelist and poet.

R. K. Narayan
R. K. Narayan (October 10, 1906 – May 13, 2001), shortened from  Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer
Narayanaswami

was an Indian author whose works of fiction include a series of books about people and their interactions
in an imagined town in India.

He is credited with bringing Indian literature in English to the rest of the world, and is regarded as one of
India's greatest English language novelists. In a writing career that spanned over sixty years, Narayan
received many awards and honours. These include the AC Benson Medal from the Royal Society of
Literature and the Padma Vibhushan, India's second-highest civilian award. He was also nominated to
the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament.His novels generally focused on ordinary
people, reminding the reader of next-door neighbours, cousins and the like, thereby providing a greater
ability to relate to the topic.[74] Unlike his national contemporaries, he was able to write about the
intricacies of Indian society without having to modify his characteristic simplicity to conform to trends and
fashions in fiction of his writings.  Narayan is credited with bringing Indian writing to the rest of the world.
While he has been regarded as one of India's greatest writers of the twentieth century, critics have also
described his writings with adjectives such as charming, harmless and benign. Narayan has also come in
for criticism from later writers, particularly of Indian origin, who have classed his writings as having a
pedestrian style with a shallow vocabulary and a narrow vision
Mulk Raj Anand
Mulk Raj Anand (12 December 1905 – 28 September 2004) was an Indian writer in English, notable for his depiction
of the lives of the poorer castes in traditional Indian society. One of the pioneers of Indo-Anglian fiction, he, together
with R.K. Narayan and Ahmed Ali, was one of the first India-based writers in English to gain an international
readership. Anand's literary career was launched by family tragedy, instigated by the rigidity of the caste system. This
simple book, which captured the puissance of the Punjabi and Hindi idiom in English was widely acclaimed and
Anand won the reputation of being India's Charles Dickens. 

Inevitably, Anand, who spent half his time in London and half in

India, was drawn to the Indian independence movement. At the same time, he also supported freedom elsewhere
around the globe and even travelled to Spain to volunteer in the Spanish Civil War. He spent World War II working as
a scriptwriter for the BBC in London. Anand returned to India in 1946, and continued with his prodigious literary
output there. His work includes poetry and essay on a wide range of subjects, as well as autobiographies and
novels.  His work includes poetry and essay on a wide range of subjects, as well as autobiographies and novels.
Prominent among his novels are The Village (1939), Across the Black Waters (1940), The Sword and the
Sickle (1942), all written in England, and Coolie (1936), The Private Life of an Indian Prince(1953), perhaps the most
important of his works written in India. He also founded a literary magazine, Marg, and taught in various universities.
Like much of his later work, it contains elements of his spiritual journey as he struggles to attain a higher sense of
self-awareness.

Bibliography
Novels
Untouchable 1935

Coolie 1936

Two Leaves and a Bud 1938

The village 1939

Across the Black Waters 1940

The Sword and the Sickle 1942

The Private Life of an Indian Prince 1953

Raja Rao
Raja Rao (November 8, 1908 – July 8, 2006) was an Indian writer of English language novels and short stories,

whose works are deeply rooted in Hinduism. Raja Rao's semi-autobiographical novel, The Serpent and the

Rope (1960), is a story of a search for spiritual truth in Europe and India. It established him as one of the finest Indian

stylists. Returning to India in 1939, he edited with Iqbal Singh, Changing India, an anthology of modern Indian

thought from Ram Mohan Roy to Jawaharlal Nehru. He participated in the Quit India Movement of 1942. In 1943-

1944 he coedited with Ahmed Ali a journal from Bombay called Tomorrow. He was the prime mover in the formation

of a cultural organization, Sri Vidya Samiti, devoted to reviving the values of ancient Indian civilization; this

organization failed shortly after inception. In Bombay, he was also associated with Chetana, a cultural society for the

propagation of Indian thought and values.

Rao's involvement in the nationalist movement is reflected in his first two books. The novel Kanthapura (1938) was

an account of the impact of Gandhi's teaching on non-violent resistance against the British. The story is seen from

the perspective of a small Mysore village in South India. Rao borrows the style and structure from Indian vernacular

tales and folk-epic.

Bibliography

Fiction

 Kanthapura, 1938

 The Serpent and the Rope, 1960

 The Cat and Shakespeare  : A Tale of India, 1965

 Comrade Kirilov, 1976

 The Policeman and the Rose: Stories, 1978

 The Chessmaster and His Moves, 1988

Non-Fiction

 Changing India: An Anthology (edited with Iqbal Singh), 1939

 Whither India? (edited with Iqbal Singh), 1948

 The Meaning of India essays, 1996

 The Great Indian Way: A Life of Mahatma Gandhi biography, 1998.

Upcoming Work

 Daughter of the Mountain (Volume 2 of the Chessmaster trilogy) to be published in 2008.

 A Myrobalan in the Palm of Your Hand (Volume 3 of the Chessmaster trilogy).

Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941), sobriquet Gurudev, was
a Bengali poet,novelist, musician, painter and playwright who reshaped Bengali literature and music. As
author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he was the first non-European
who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. His poetry in translation was viewed as spiritual,
and this together with his mesmerizing persona gave him a prophet-like aura in the west. His "elegant
prose and magical poetry" still remain largely unknown outside the confines of Bengal.

Though known mostly for his poetry, Tagore also wrote novels, essays, short
stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic,
optimistic, and lyrical nature. Such stories mostly borrow from deceptively simple subject matter: common
people. through the lens of the idealistic zamindar protagonist Nikhil—excoriates rising Indian
nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the Swadeshi movement; a frank expression of Tagore's
conflicted sentiments, it emerged out of a 1914 bout of depression. The novel ends in Hindu-Muslim
violence and Nikhil's (likely mortal) wounding. It also contains elements of satire and postmodernism;
stock characters gleefully attack the reputation of an old, outmoded, oppressively renowned poet who,
incidentally, goes by the name of Rabindranath Tagore. Though his novels remain among the least-
appreciated of his works, they have been given renewed attention via film adaptations by Satyajit Ray and
others: Chokher Bali and Ghare Baire are exemplary.

 Tagore was perhaps the only litterateur who penned anthems of two countries
- Jana Gana Mana, the Indian national anthem and Amar Shonar Bangla, the Bangladeshi national
anthem. Tagore visited more than thirty countries on five continent on lecturing circuits on denounced
Nationalism. He contributed India in literature and enhancing nationalism.
Sarojini Naidu
Sarojini Naidu () (February 13, 1879, Hyderabad – March 2, 1949, Lucknow), also known by the
sobriquet The Nightingale of India was a child prodigy, freedom fighter, and poet. Naidu was the first
Indian woman to become the President of the Indian National Congress and the first woman to become
the Governor of Uttar Pradesh. She was famously known as Bharatiya Kokila (The Nightingale of India).

She was active in the Indian Independence Movement, joining Mahatma Gandhi in the Salt March to
Dandi, and then leading the Dharasana Satyagrahaafter the arrests of Gandhi, Abbas Tyabji,
and Kasturba Gandhi

Naidu writes: :Shall hope prevail where clamorous hate is rife,

Shall sweet love prosper or high dreams have place

Amid the tumult of reverberant strife
'Twixt ancient creeds, 'twixt race and ancient race,
That mars the grave, glad purposes of life,
Leaving no refuge save thy succoring face?

Naidu said, '"When there is oppression, the only self-respecting thing is to rise and say this shall cease
today, because my right is justice.
She gave her whole life to the country,in the form of literature and as a freedom fighter. She also been to jailed for

Her support in freedom movements leaded by Gandhiji. May be her contribution is little in the literature but she

Had been known as a tremendous poet of India.

Vikram Seth
Vikram Seth born June 20, 1952) is an Indian poet, novelist, travel writer, librettist, children's
writer,biographer and memoirist.

After the success of The Golden Gate, Seth took up residence in his parents' house back in
Delhi to work on his second novel, A Suitable Boy (1993). Though initially conceived as a short piece detailing the
domestic drama of an Indian mother's search for an appropriate husband for her marriageable Indian daughter
against the background of the formative years of India after independence, the novel grew and Seth was to labour
over it for almost a decade. The 1474-page novel is a four-family saga set in post-independence, post-Partition India,
and alternatively satirically and earnestly examines issues of national politics in the period leading up to the first post-
independence national election of 1952, inter-sectarian animosity, the status of lower caste peoples such as the jatav,
land reform and the eclipse of the feudal princes and landlords, academic affairs, inter- and intra-family relations and
a range of further issues of importance to the characters. The Indian journalist and novelist Khushwant Singh has
said of the novel that, "I lived through that period and I couldn't find a flaw. It really is an authentic picture of Nehru's
India."[7] The novel was, despite its formidable length, a bestseller, and propelled Seth into the public spotlight.

Bibliography

Novels Children's book

 The Golden Gate (1986)  Beastly Tales (1991)

 A Suitable Boy (1993) Libretto

 An Equal Music (1999)

 A Suitable Girl (2013)  Arion and the Dolphin (1994)

Poetry The Traveller [2008]

Non-fiction
 Mappings (1980)

 The Humble Administrator's Garden (1985)  From Heaven Lake (1983)

 All You Who Sleep Tonight (1990)  Two Lives (2005)
 Beastly Tales (1991)

 Three Chinese Poets (1992)

 The Frog and the Nightingale (1994)

Notable works

 The Eyes Have It (short story)

 A Flight of Pigeons
 Angry River
 The Woman on Platform 8
 Tiger in the Tunnel, a story written in a treasure trove of short stories
Anita Desai
Anita Mazumdar Desai (born June 24, 1937) is an Indian novelist and Emeritus John
E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
She has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times, was awarded the Sahitya
Akademi Award, in 1978 for her novel, Fire on the Mountain, by theSahitya Akademi,
India's National Academy of Letters.

Desai published her first novel, Cry The Peacock, in 1963. She considers Clear Light
Of Day (1980) her most autobiographical work as it is set during her coming of age
and also in the same neighborhood in which she grew up. [4] In 1984 she published In
Custody - about an Urdu poet in his declining days - which was shortlisted for
the Booker Prize. In 1993 she became a creative writing teacher at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.[5] Her latest novel, The Zigzag Way (2004), is set in 20th-
century Mexico.

Desai has taught at Mount Holyoke College, Baruch College and Smith College. She

is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the American Academy of Arts and
Letters, and of Girton College, Cambridge University(to which she dedicated
Baumgartner's Bombay).

 Selected works

 The Zigzag Way (2004)

 Diamond Dust and Other Stories (2000)
 Fasting, Feasting (1999)
 Journey to Ithaca (1995)
 Baumgartner's Bombay (1988)
 In Custody (1984)
 The Village By The Sea (1982)
 Clear Light of Day (1980)
 Games at Twilight (1978)
 Fire on the Mountain (1977)
 Where Shall We Go This Summer? (1975)
 Bye-bye Blackbird(1971)
 Cry, The Peacock(1963)
Conclusion:
Indian literature is assumed to yield positive effects on various developmental
objectives. In India, the millennium development goals for the writers are: to
eradicate extreme struggle in their life for money starvation, achieve education,
promote gender equality and empower women.

Therefore in concluding words, I can say that through the help of assignment in
English on the topic of Indian writers and their contribution in Indian literature, i
learnt a lot of things and a marvelous experience of personnel life, education and
the books & novels written by the authors. The knowledge about their literary
works guided me in the right direction which helped me to understand the
organizational culture, teamwork, targets and the process to achieve them.

In a nutshell, I can say that the literary works of the Indian authors helped me to
develop greater skills for making me inaugurate to concentrate me in the field of
literature and developed my writing skills in casual poems.