>>24461046
Hey, thank you.
And yeah, even I was quite fascinated to find this essay. Dinkar was the guy for his time, knew Sanskrit, Hindi, English, Urdu, Bengali, French (he translated Baudelaire) was also good friends and sometime advisor to the first prime minister of the country.
He makes one apt remark though in his essay collection, that by the time modernism rolled around, people were only just becoming decently acquainted with the modernists. And by the time post-modernism was in swing people were only then familiarizing themselves with modernist works.
>>24461084
I think the two that come to mind are Upendranath Ashk's Falling Walls 5 (6 if you count the unfinished stuff) volume series.
From a blurb "A young man from Jalandhar longs to become a writer but fails at every turn. Upendranath Ashk's 1947 novel explores in great detail the trials and tribulations of Chetan. From the back galis of Lahore and Jalandhar to Shimla's Scandal Point, Falling Walls offers a rich and intimate portrait of lower-middle-class life in the 1930s and the hurdles an aspiring writer must overcome to fulfil his ambitions.
"
I haven't had the chance to read it myself yet, but I've looked at some excerpts, page long sentences lol, found it to be in that vein of self-analytical yet almost laissez faire approach to writing, endearing portraitures of the lived experiences of living in that period of India haunted by dreams of independence.
The granddaughter of Norman Rockwell of all people, Daisy Rockwell, has been translating his entire oeuvre relatively quickly, all things considered. Her translations' page is also worth a glance on wikipedia.
And second, The Sun's Seventh Horse, 1952 novella, with that story-within-a-story framework like Panchantantra, Kathasaritsagara, Miquel Palol, Saragossa Manuscript et al. Almost DFW-esque characters (think Good Old Neon, Trillaphon etc.) talking about and experiencing their failed loves, hopeless attempts at a better life etc.
It was also made into a cult-classic film (not the Bollywood slop, but by Shyam Benegal the kind-of heir to the place Satyajit Ray held in Indian cinema).
Translations for both are published by Penguin Classics, and Oxford, so I'm sure you can find copies relatively easily. Though they are available digitally too on libgen or what have you.
The recent Booker prize winners have also been good I feel, Tomb of Sand, and Heart's Lamp.
But suffers from being more politically inclined. I mean that's the whole deal with quite a bit of Indian literature to some degree, in a socialist country it is difficult for "Art for Art's sake" to naturally come up and become popular. Almost all the Indians writing in English troupe are just borderline commies. I am not one to be too /pol/-brained, but in their works its clear that it is not being written from a genuine place of craft, or passion.
