1st Edition
Indian Popular Fiction Redefining the Canon
This anthology explores and validate the nuances of Indian popular fiction which has hitherto been hounded by its ubiquitous 'commerical' success. It uncoverspopular in its socio-political and cultural contexts. Furthermore, it investigates the vitality embedded in theory and praxis of popular forms and their insurrections in mutants and new age oeuvres and looks to examine the symbiotic bonds between the reader and the author, as the latter articulates and perpetuates the needs of the former whose demands need continual fulfilment. This constant metamorphosis of the popular fueled by neoliberalism and postmodernity along with the shifts in the publishing industry to more democratic 'reader' driven genres is taken up here along with the millenial's fetish for romance, humanized mythical retellings and the evergreen whodunnits. As its natural soulmates, the anthology delves into the interstices of Indian Popular with desi (local) traditions, folk lore, community consciousness and nation building.
Please note: This title is co-published with Aakar Books, New Delhi. Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Foreword by Advaita Kala
Introduction
PART I- Popular Habitats: Changing Ethos
1. The Reader has Moved on. Long Live the Consumer! 2. Reading Mills and Boon in India: From the
Post-Colonial to the Millennial Experience 3. Indian Commercial Fiction: Chetan Bhagat and the Politics of the Neoliberal Citizenry 4. The Use and Abuse of ‘Abuse’ in the ‘Popular’
PART II- Popular Whodunnit: India’s Tryst with Sherlock
5. Papyrus to Celluloid: An Insight into the Oeuvre
of Bengali Detectives 6. Feluda’s Rendezvous with Heirlooms and Tradition 7. From Detective to Vigilante: An Examination of the Vimal Series by Surender Mohan Pathak
PART III- Popular Mythology: Revisitations and Retelling
8. Mytho-Nukes: The Indian Popular and the Nuclear Debate 9. Re-configuring Sita as the Warrior of Mithila 10. The Palace of Illusions: Redefining the Mahabharata in Popular Fiction Popular Vernacular: Identities and Intersections 11. Sikh Periodicals and Popular Literature: Framing Community Consciousness 12. Thakurmar Jhuli: A Study of the Changing Bengali Society 13. Indian English Commercial Fiction and the Question of Caste
Biography
Gitanjali Chawla, Folklorist, Researcher and Editor, is an Associate Professor of English at Maharaja Agrasen College, University of Delhi, India with more than twenty-five years of teaching experience. She is the co-editor of three seminal anthologies, Cultures of the Indigenous: India and Beyond (2014), De-territorialising Diversities: Literatures of the Indigenous and Marginalised (2014) and Re-storying the Indigenous and the Popular Imaginary (2017). She is also the Secretary, FORTELL (Forum for Teahers of English Language and Literature) and has edited several issues of the journal, Fortell.
Sangeeta Mittal is Associate Professor in the Department of English. She has over twenty-five years of experience in teaching English literature, with the Jacobean Age, Restoration Literature and the Romantics as her favourite areas.
