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India The Illustrated History of Indian Literature in English. Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, ed. New Delhi / New York. Permanent Black (Orient Longman, distr.) / Columbia University Press. 2002/2003. xxii + 406 pages, ill. Rs1,495/$75. ISBN 81-7824-031-9/0-231-12810-x
CONTRADICTING THE WORDS of an India Today reviewer, it would be "pernicious" to expect any complex, multipronged collection of essays on the whole range of Indian English literature from 1800 to the present to be in itself "convincing ... as 'Indian,'" whatever that might mean. Thus, this survey pleases mightily by being multidisciplinary, multidimensional, and open to multiple points of view and interpretations, not only by the various contributors but also by readers. Still, the same reviewer is right that "the book is certainly 'illustrated'-so brilliantly, in fact, that that alone would make it worth possessing." Indeed, an eleven-page list of illustrations explains the character, setting, personages, historical background, provenance, et cetera, of each of the 150 (often rare) photos, sketches, caricatures, paintings, and engravings. High-production values in the Indian edition include a long single column with widely spaced lines in 12-point type, clearly signaling this hefty volume's affluent English-using, consumption-oriented Indian middle class-along with all well-provided public libraries worldwide. Present-day Indian English writers, diasporic and otherwise, get a sizable share of attention here: of the twenty-four chapters or essays, four are confined more or less exclusively to their work, and parts of three omnibus essays deal with other presently active writers. "Written by specialists . .. for the non-specialist reader," there are no footnotes and less than seven pages of suggested "further reading" organized chapter by chapter, so this is definitely not an in-depth reference book.
Striving for the widest possible compass, Mehrotra sadly admits that four more commissioned...