Modernism in South Asian Fiction, 1933-1970

FAIN: FA-56006-11

Amardeep Singh
Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA 18015-3027)

This book charts the emergence of a modernist literary sensibility in South Asia, focusing especially on the prose fiction that emerged from the Progressive Writers’ Association (ca. 1933-1960) and the ‘New Story’ movement that followed (ca. 1956-1970). What does it mean to be modern outside of a Eurocentric paradigm? How is modernity constituted with reference to the particular religious and cultural traditions of the Indian subcontinent? And how are these questions addressed specifically in modern fiction, with its heterogeneous formal and aesthetic elements? In addition to theorizing the periodization of South Asian modernism, Modernism in South Asian Fiction will demonstrate the interconnections amongst writers working in Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, and English, adducing a linguistic sensitivity that has at times been lacking in transnational modernist studies.