Naipaul criticised the current boom in Indian writing by saying, "I know of no literature in the history of the world which has been created for foreign readership, foreign publishers, foreign critics."
Now Kushwant Singh has his dig. He says of the three pioneers of Indian writers in English: Mulk Raj Anand was a Marxist propagandist, Raja Rao turned ... to exploiting the mystical and spiritual aspects of India and R.K. Narayan (was) a simple storyteller. "... none of his novels or stories has the ingredients I consider integral to fiction: sex, violence or pithy turns of phrases." (Narayan remains to this day the most widely read Indian.)
Kushwant Singh's top twelve are:
- A house for Mr Biswas -- VS Naipaul
- Midnight's Children -- Salman Rushdie
- A Suitable Boy -- Vikram Seth
- Shadow Lines -- Amitabh Ghosh
- Cuckold -- Kiran Nagarkar
- The God of Small Things -- Arundhati Roy
- Interpreter of Maladies -- Jhumpa Lahiri
- The Trotter-Nama: A Chronicle -- I Allan Sealy
- Chinnery's Hotel -- Jaysinh Birjepatil
- The Hero's Walk -- Anita Rau Badami
- Filming:a love story -- Tabish Khair
- The Assasin's Song -- MG Vassanji
Full story: http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20070820&fname=OKhushwant+Singh+%28F%29&sid=1
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