In The Caravan Amit Chaudhuri considers 'what counts for an indigenous tradition of Indian English writing ?' in The Sideways Movement (with a focus on Arvind Krishna Mehrotra's poetry).
Among the interesting observations:
Among the interesting observations:
Midnight's Children was published to a neglectful silence in Britain, and then, after winning the Booker Prize, was almost immediately reassessed as having given, in the words of the New York Times reviewer, a "voice" to a "continent". Rushdie's novel should have been placed in the unique line of Indian cross-cultural works that Mehrotra was arguing for in his essay. Instead, Midnight's Children was appropriated by a powerful new discourse, postcolonialism; applauded for its 'difference' from 'well-made' English novels; congratulated for 'writing back' to the Empire and making English an Indian language -- while Rushdie cooperated with this large-scale makeover.