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After the pioneer works by scholars such as Naik, Narasimhaiah and Mukherjee, and the thirty years of silence which followed their ground-breaking achievements, the Companion appears on the scene striving to reinvigorate the tradition of panoramic studies of Indian literature in English. In the intervening period, Indian fiction in English has become of paramount importance in the wide context of postcolonial studies: an emergent crop of novelists belonging to the so-called “new generation” has colourfully paved the way towards new artistic horizons, re-interpreting Western-derived literary models with inventive approaches. Complementary to their role there is the articulate presence of a host of Indian scholars who in recent years have significantly influenced the course of this analysis and have vitally contributed to enlarging its scope well beyond the original boundaries of studies in literary criticism. The Companion, therefore, addresses the exigencies of critics, teachers and students alike—all those who need to find quick points of reference in this wide field of studies—by relying on a team of authoritative collaborators and specialists from all over the world. Great care was taken not only in selecting collaborators on the basis of their specialisation but also taking into account their cultural background in relation to the author they were to discuss. The book in fact has been organised to have what have been deemed to be the most representative authors in Indian fiction discussed in an essay-long chapter each, structured to highlight crucial points such as biographical details, novels and critical reception. Each chapter includes a final bibliography complete with primary and secondary sources, enabling the scholar to have immediate orientation on various specific topics. Finally, the book has an innovative section, with synopses of novels, planned to allow our readers to immediately place the authors analysed within the panorama of Indian fiction in English. The over 400 synopses included principally introduce works written by the novelists discussed at length in the previous chapters but, along with them, it is also possible to find summaries of works by authors who, although contributing in a significant way to the development of forms and techniques, do not feature in the first part. About the Author Pier Paolo Piciucco is a Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Turin. He has collaborated with the Italian Academic Institute CSAE (Centre for the Study of Literatures and Cultures of Emerging Areas) and for them has edited and translated into Italian a bilingual volume of short stories by Indian writers entitled Feminine, Plural. With Rajeshwar Mittapalli he has edited Volumes 1 and 2 of Studies in Indian Writing in English, as well as Kamala Das: A Critical Spectrum and The Fiction of Raja Rao: Critical Studies, all published by Atlantic Publishers and Distributors New Delhi. The Two Souls, his first monographic work, a theory of Black South African theatre, was published in the year 2002.. Table of Contents 1. R.K. Narayan-Geoffrey Kain 2. Mulk Raj Anand-Basavaraj Naikar 3. Raja Rao-Ragini Ramachandra 4. Khushwant Singh-P. Balaswamy 5. Kamala Markandaya-Usha Bande 6. Nayantara Sahgal-Jasbir Jain 7. Anita Desai-D. Maya 8. Arun Joshi-Pier Paolo Piciucco 9. Bharati Mukherjee-Florence D'Souza 10. Shashi Deshpande-Jasbir Jain 11. Salman Rushdie-Neil ten Kortenaar 12. Amitav Ghosh-John Thieme 13. Rohinton Mistry-Silvia Albertazzi 14. Vikram Seth-Alberta Fabris Grube 15. Shashi Tharoor-Tabish Khair 16. Vikram Chandra-Andrew Teverson 17. Arundhati Roy-Nancy Ellen Batty 18. Synopses of Novels Contributors