Positions- Essays on Indian Literature

Positions features a careful selection from K. Satchidanandan's essays on Indian literature, written over the past 25 years. The general theme of the book is Indian literature(s). The book contains essays that look for paradigms based on Indian textual practices and reading traditions, while also drawing freely on Indian and Western critical concepts and close readings of certain texts.

The first part of the book discusses questions on the idea of Indian literature, the poetics of Bhakti, the concept of the 'modern', the location of English writing in India, the conflicting ideas of India, projected especially by the subaltern literary movements and the issues of literary criticism and translation. The second part of the book discusses the work of individual authors including Sarala Das, Mirza Ghalib, Kabir, Rabindranath Tagore, Saratchandra Chatterjee, Sarojini Naidu, Kedarnath Singh, A.K. Ramanujan and Kamala Das.

K. Satchidanandan combines the wide sweep of a polyglot scholar with theoretical sophistication and the keen sensitivity of a fine poet. This book distils a lifetime of his exploration of a vast and vital field.

Dr Harish Trivedi, Professor, University of Delhi

Positions carries a careful selection from my essays on Indian literature written over the last 25 years. Most of these came to be written for presentation as papers or keynote speeches at seminars or for collections on specific themes, while some had their origins as notes for lectures in universities and literary institutions in India and abroad.

The general theme of the book is Indian literature(s). The book carries essays that look for paradigms based on Indian textual practices and reading traditions, while also drawing freely on Indian and Western critical concepts and methods and the close readings of certain texts. The questions discussed include the idea of Indian literature, the poetics of Bhakti, the concept of the 'modern', the location of English writing in India, the conflicting ideas of India, projected especially by the new subaltern literary movements and the issues of literary criticism and of translation. The individual authors whose texts are discussed include Sarala Das, Mirza Ghalib, Kabir, Rabindranath Tagore, Saratchandra Chatterjee, Sarojini Naidu, Kedarnath Singh, A.K. Ramanujan and Kamala Das. I hope these essays will contribute to the growing, yet insufficient, corpus of comparative literary studies in India which, at least since the arrival of scholars like Sisir Kumar Das, has shifted its focus from the discovery of European parallels for Indian literary movements, trends and texts with its Eurocentric bias to comparisons between trends, movements and texts among the different literary languages of India. I consider this a significant and necessary paradigmatic transformation.

I wish to place on record my thanks to all the organisations and institutions whose persistent demands led to the writing of these essays in the first place, to the publishers and editors of journals and books that featured many of them and to Niyogi Books, especially to my former colleague and friend Nirmal Kanti Bhattacharjee, Niyogi's Editorial Director, who realised the academic potential of these essays and took special interest in bringing out this collection.

**Contents and Sample Pages**