New literatures. 5, The Indian Subcontinent and Sri Lanka

The year 2009–10 was characterized by a resurgence of interest in Indian writers who have hitherto been neglected in postcolonial criticism for their adherence to a realist modality as opposed to the postmodern playfulness of magical realism associated with Salman Rushdie since 1981. At least two monographs and several chapters in books and anthologies focused on the work of Nayantara Sahgal, Shashi Deshpande, Anita Desai, and Kamala Markandaya. Among writers of the post-Rushdie generation, Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things emphatically outshone every other work in terms of the sheer volume of critical attention it received. Postcolonial theory’s encounter with recent critical paradigms of cosmopolitanism, globalization, and ecocriticism emerged as major areas of scholarly interest. The year was also characterized by some impassioned writing, with even anthologies, generally associated with conference proceedings and rote application of theory to text, managing to generate an intensity of purpose and analysis.