Indian Imaginaries in World Literature and Domestic Popular Culture
Per Ståhlberg
Chapter from the book: Helgesson, S et al. 2018. World Literatures: Exploring the Cosmopolitan-Vernacular Exchange.
Part of
Chapter from the book: Helgesson, S et al. 2018. World Literatures: Exploring the Cosmopolitan-Vernacular Exchange.
This chapter will focus on two novels, both of them written in English by Indian authors and published in the same year, 2008: Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger and Chetan Bhagats’s The Three Mistakes of my Life. Both novels narrate contemporary Indian society and share several themes, but they belong in different literary fields. Adiga’s book is circulating in a global literary field, Bhagat’s is a domestic bestseller. By focusing on common narrative elements in these two novels, my aim is to understand how vernacular and cosmopolitan tendencies are juxtaposed in various ways, thus constructing “world making” narratives for different audiences.
Ståhlberg, P. 2018. Indian Imaginaries in World Literature and Domestic Popular Culture. In: Helgesson, S et al (eds.), World Literatures. Stockholm: Stockholm University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16993/bat.w
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Published on Nov. 22, 2018