diaspora lit: dalrymple on the subcontinent
In the Guardian Review, William Dalrymple discusses the South Asian literary diaspora and its "lost sub-continent", writing about
what is without doubt the strangest aspect of the renaissance of Indian writing in English: the extraordinary degree to which, at least at its highest levels, it is now almost entirely written by the diaspora. As far as writing in English is concerned, not one of the Indian literary A-list actually lives in India, except Roy, and she seems to have given up writing fiction. It is not just that the diaspora tail is wagging the Indian dog. As far as the A-list is concerned, the diaspora tail is the dog.It's a thought-provoking piece, although similar things have been said before (for example, Rushdie's exceedingly controversial essay "Damme, this is the Oriental Scene for you!," although it was focused more on Indian writing in English regardless of locale). Dalrymple's inclusion of academic writing in the discussion is especially interesting. I'll probably have more to say about this later, but I am slightly tipsy and also absolutely enraged by an offensive, bigoted anti-Muslim screed someone has just posted to an Oxford mailing list I'm on. So further thoughts will have to wait until I've stopped fuming, and gotten some sleep.
posted by elizabeth at 6:08 PM
1 Comments:
I just read the whole article (the online version is slightly edited actually)...and to be honest, dalrymple isn't that far off the mark.
i've read pretty much every major IWE that you can think of...and a lot of the recent stuff is just terrible. the only good stuff i've read recently is rana dasgupta's tokyo cancelled...and dasgupta is british and says, like hari kunzru that his having indian roots is only incidental.
the bit that dalrymple doesn't touch upon is that it's almost impossible to make a living from writing in india. u've got to be something else (civil servants?) and a writer to ensure that u survive. in a country where if a child announces he/she is going to be a 'writer' and make a living from it, there is considerable opposition, this lack of financial stability i think plays a major role. some of my friends who would love to be full time writers just can't afford to, and so have to take on full on desk jobs and supplement that with their writing...it's a bit of a catch 22 situation really...
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