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  • Published: 8 August 1997
  • ISBN: 9780099731016
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 608
  • RRP: $35.00

Vintage Book Of Indian Writing 1947 - 1997




The perfect introduction to one of the world's richest literary traditions, Rushdie's anthology boasts the best in Indian writing accross 50 years of independence.

The Indian subcontinent has produced some of the world's greatest writers, and a body of literature unsurpassed in its sustained imagination, impassioned lyricism and sparkling tragi-comedy. Now Salman Rushdie and Elizabeth West have collected together the finest Indian writing of the last fifty years. Published to coincide with the anniversary of India's independence, it is an anthology of extraordinary range and vigour, as exciting and varied as the land that inspired it.

Including works by:

Mulk Raj Anand
Gita Mehta
Anjana Appachana
Ved Mehta
Vikram Chandra
Rohinton Mistry
Upamanyu Chatterjee
R. K. Narayan
Amit Chaudhuri
Jawaharlal Nehru
Nirad C. Chaudhuri
Padma Perera
Anita Desai
Satyajit Ray
Kiran Desai
Arundhati Roy
G. V. Desani
Salman Rushdie
Amitav Ghosh
Nayantara Sahgal
Githa Hariharan
I. Allan Sealy
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Vikram Seth
Firdaus Kanga
Bapsi Sidhwa
Mukul Kesavan
Sara Suleri
Saadat Hasan Manto
Shashi Tharoor
Kamala Markandaya
Ardashir Vakil

  • Published: 8 August 1997
  • ISBN: 9780099731016
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 608
  • RRP: $35.00

About the authors

Elizabeth West

Salman Rushdie is the author of ten novels, one collection of short stories, three works of non-fiction, and the co-editor of The Vintage Book of Indian Writing. In 1993 Midnight's Children was judged to be the Best of the Booker, the best novel to have won the Booker Prize in its forty year history. The Moor's Last Sigh won the Whitbread Prize in 1995 and the European Union's Aristeion Prize for Literature in 1996. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres.

Elizabeth West is a freelance editor.

Seamus Deane

Born in Derry in 1940, Seamus Deane has published several books of criticism and poetry; his essay collection 'Small World: Ireland 1800-2000' will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2019. He lives in Dublin.

Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie is the author of fourteen previous novels, including Midnight's Children (for which he won the Booker Prize and the Best of the Booker), The Satanic Verses, and Quichotte (which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize). A former president of PEN American Center, Rushdie was knighted in 2007 for services to literature and was made a Companion of Honour in the Queen's last Birthday Honours list in 2022.

Praise for Vintage Book Of Indian Writing 1947 - 1997

Rushdie offers us a sweeping, birds' eye view of 50 years of good writing. He proves that there is an Indo-Anglian canon, and as he reaches our own time, he elects new contenders for future glory

Aamer Hussein, Independent

For matters both literary and (in the broad sense) political, one of the most informative, as well as enjoyable, [books about India] is The Vintage Book of Indian Writing 1947-97... Rushdie's fine introduction to this compendium of contemporary Indian prose...digresses fascinatingly on polylingualism, identity and dislocation

Independent on Sunday

This is the most impressive regional anthology I've seen for years. But then India is an awfully big region. With a population of nearly a billion, you would expect some crackerjack writers in their midst. And here they are.

Iain Sharp, The Sunday Star-Times (Auckland)