Vintage Book Of Indian Writing 1947 - 1997

The perfect introduction to one of the world's richest literary traditions, Rushdie's anthology boasts the best in Indian writing accross 50 years of independence.

Rushdie offers us a sweeping, birds' eye view of 50 years of good  writing. He proves that there is an Indo-Anglian canon, and as he reaches our  own time, he elects new contenders for future glory

For matters both literary and (in the broad sense) political, one of the most informative, as well as enjoyable, [books about India] is The Vintage Book of Indian Writing 1947-97... Rushdie's fine introduction to this compendium of contemporary Indian prose...digresses fascinatingly on polylingualism, identity and dislocation

This is the most impressive regional anthology I've seen for  years. But then India is an awfully big region. With a population of nearly a  billion, you would expect some crackerjack writers in their midst. And here they  are.

Salman Rushdie is the author of ten novels, one collection of short stories, three works of non-fiction, and the co-editor of The Vintage Book of Indian Writing. In 1993 Midnight's Children was judged to be the Best of the Booker, the best novel to have won the Booker Prize in its forty year history. The Moor's Last Sigh won the Whitbread Prize in 1995 and the European Union's Aristeion Prize for Literature in 1996. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres. 
 
Elizabeth West is a freelance editor.

The Indian subcontinent has produced some of the world's greatest writers, and a body of literature unsurpassed in its sustained imagination, impassioned lyricism and sparkling tragi-comedy. Now Salman Rushdie and Elizabeth West have collected together the finest Indian writing of the last fifty years. Published to coincide with the anniversary of India's independence, it is an anthology of extraordinary range and vigour, as exciting and varied as the land that inspired it. 
 
Including works by: 
 
Mulk Raj Anand 
Gita Mehta 
Anjana Appachana 
Ved Mehta 
Vikram Chandra 
Rohinton Mistry 
Upamanyu Chatterjee 
R. K. Narayan 
Amit Chaudhuri 
Jawaharlal Nehru 
Nirad C. Chaudhuri 
Padma Perera 
Anita Desai 
Satyajit Ray 
Kiran Desai 
Arundhati Roy 
G. V. Desani 
Salman Rushdie 
Amitav Ghosh 
Nayantara Sahgal 
Githa Hariharan 
I. Allan Sealy 
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala 
Vikram Seth 
Firdaus Kanga 
Bapsi Sidhwa 
Mukul Kesavan 
Sara Suleri 
Saadat Hasan Manto 
Shashi Tharoor 
Kamala Markandaya 
Ardashir Vakil

Seamus Deane

Reading In The Dark is a swift, masterful transformation of family griefs and political violence into something at once rhapsodic and heartbreaking. If Isaac Babel had been born in Derry, he might have written this sudden, brilliant book.

Marvellous...almost impossible to put down

Go into your nearest bookshop and buy Reading In The Dark... A novel that no reader with any concern for their heart or mind should be without

A wonderful evocation of childhood; a vibrant, unforgettable fragment that leaves you aching for more

A profoundly emotive and seamlessly structured exploration of loss and regret. It is also funny and authentic. What more could one ask of a book?

This is the work of a master story-teller...a book to buy, read and read again

In language strikingly lucid and scenes fired by a spare, aching passion, Reading in the Dark combines the intimacy of a memoir with the suspense of a detective story

This is the story of a haunted Irish childhood. 
 
The setting is Derry in the Northern Ireland of the 40s and 50s, fraught with political hatred, family secrets and lethal intrigue. As a young boy tries to make sense of life, poverty and violence shift and obscure the facts; meanwhile his night-time reading of Irish legends weaves enchantment through reality. Claustrophobic but lyrically charged, breathtakingly sad but vibrant and unforgettable, this is one of the finest books about growing up – in Ireland or anywhere – that has ever been written. 
 
See also: The Green Road by Anne Enright

Seamus Deane

Praise for Reading in the Dark

Reading In The Dark is a swift, masterful transformation of family griefs and political violence into something at once rhapsodic and heartbreaking. If Isaac Babel had been born in Derry, he might have writte ...

Marvellous...almost impossible to put down

Go into your nearest bookshop and buy Reading In The Dark... A novel that no reader with any concern for their heart or mind should be without

Reading In The Dark is a swift, masterful transformation of family griefs and political violence into something at once rhapsodic and heartbreaking. If Isaac Babel had been born in Derry, he might have writte ...

Marvellous...almost impossible to put down

Go into your nearest bookshop and buy Reading In The Dark... A novel that no reader with any concern for their heart or mind should be without

Reading In The Dark is a swift, masterful transformation of family griefs and political violence into something at once rhapsodic and heartbreaking. If Isaac Babel had been born in Derry, he might have writte ...

Marvellous...almost impossible to put down

Go into your nearest bookshop and buy Reading In The Dark... A novel that no reader with any concern for their heart or mind should be without

Books by Seamus Deane

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