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India put to the pen
SOLOMON HUGHES looks at how contemporary Indian novels address the social realities of the country
Megha Majumdar and a street scene
[Background image Bernard Gagnon/Creative Commons]
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IF, LIKE ME, you want to read “social” novels describing the society we live in, with characters from the bottom of the heap as well as the higher layers, you might feel too much English fiction just deals with the inner life and outer struggles of the middle class.
It can be a struggle finding English novels with that big “Dickensian” spread, with characters from the rich and the poor, and plots that throw them together.
Thankfully there are a growing number of Indian authors writing “social” novels dramatising how people try and hustle, or just live, in class-bound, exploitative societies.
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