Indian English literature (IEL), also referred to as Indian Writing in English (IWE), is the body of work by writers in
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
who write in the
English language
English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...
but whose native or co-native language could be one of the numerous
languages of India
Languages of India belong to several list of language families, language families, the major ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by 78.05% of Indian people, Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 19.64% of Indians; both fami ...
. Its early history began with the works of
Henry Louis Vivian Derozio and
Michael Madhusudan Dutt followed by
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Thakur (; anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengalis, Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the Bengal Renai ...
and
Sri Aurobindo.
R. K. Narayan,
Mulk Raj Anand and
Raja Rao contributed to the growth and popularity of Indian English fiction in the 1930s.
It is also associated, in some cases, with the works of members of the
Indian diaspora
Overseas Indians (ISO 15919, ISO: ), officially Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and People of Indian Origin (PIOs) are people of Indian descent who reside or originate outside of India (Including those that were directly under the British Raj). Acc ...
who subsequently compose works in English.
It is often referred to as Indo-Anglian literature (a writing specific term; not to be confused with ''
Anglo-Indian''). Although some works may be classified under the genre of
postcolonial literature
Postcolonial literature is the literature by people from formerly colonized countries, originating from all continents except Antarctica. Postcolonial literature often addresses the problems and consequences of the colonization and subsequent deco ...
, Indian English literature, evolving since the late 18th century encompasses diverse themes and ideologies, making strict categorization challenging.
History
Indian English Literature is relatively recent, being nearly two centuries old. The first book written by an Indian in English was ''The Travels of Dean Mahomet'' (1794), a travel narrative by
Sake Dean Mahomed. The first Indian novel in English, ''Rajmohan’s Wife'' (1864), was written by
Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. ''Govinda Samanta, or the History of a Bengali Raiyat'' (1874) by
Lal Behari Dey and his later ''
Folk-Tales of Bengal'' (1883) further contributed to early Indian English fiction. ''Bianca, or The Young Spanish Maiden'' (1878) by
Toru Dutt was the first novel by an Indian woman.
Krupabai Satthianadhan’s autobiographical novel ''Saguna: A Story of Native Christian Life'' was serialized in ''The Madras Christian College Magazine'' (1887–88), followed by his only other novel, ''Kamala: The Story of a Hindu Life'' (1894).
The non-fictional body of prose in Indian English literature from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries includes letters, diaries,
political manifestos, articles, speeches, and philosophical works, forming a rich and varied corpus. The speeches of
Swami Vivekananda,
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Thakur (; anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengalis, Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the Bengal Renai ...
,
Chittaranjan Das,
Bal Gangadhar Tilak,
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethics, political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful Indian ...
, and
Subhas Chandra Bose
Subhas Chandra Bose (23 January 1897 – 18 August 1945) was an Indian independence movement, Indian nationalist whose defiance of British raj, British authority in India made him a hero among many Indians, but his wartime alliances with ...
played a crucial role in shaping modern India and its use of the English language.
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethics, political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful Indian ...
's ''
Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule'' (1910) was written in an indigenized variety of English, challenging 'the hegemony of Standard English'.
Raja Rao, Indian philosopher and writer, authored ''Kanthapura'' and ''The Serpent and the Rope''.
Kisari Mohan Ganguli translated the
Mahabharata into English, the only time the epic has ever been translated in its entirety into a European language.
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Thakur (; anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengalis, Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the Bengal Renai ...
wrote in Bengali and English and translated several of his own work into English.
Dhan Gopal Mukerji was the first Indian author to win a literary award in the United States.
Nirad C. Chaudhuri, a writer of non-fiction, is best known for his ''
The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian'' (1951), in which he relates his life experiences and influences.
P. Lal, a poet, translator, publisher and essayist, founded a press in the 1950s for
Indian English
Indian English (IndE, IE) or English (India) is a group of English dialects spoken in the Republic of India and among the Indian diaspora and native to India. English is used by the Government of India for communication, and is enshrined ...
writing,
Writers Workshop. Ram Nath Kak (1917–1993), a Kashmiri
veterinarian
A veterinarian (vet) or veterinary surgeon is a medical professional who practices veterinary medicine. They manage a wide range of health conditions and injuries in non-human animals. Along with this, veterinarians also play a role in animal r ...
, wrote his autobiography ''Autumn Leaves'', which is one of the most vivid portraits of life in 20th century
Kashmir
Kashmir ( or ) is the Northwestern Indian subcontinent, northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term ''Kashmir'' denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir P ...
.
R. K. Narayan contributed over many decades and was aided by
Graham Greene to find a publisher in England. Similar to the way
Thomas Hardy used
Wessex, Narayan created the fictitious town of
Malgudi where he set his novels. Some criticise Narayan for the parochial, detached and closed world that he created in the face of the changing conditions in India at the times in which the stories are set. Others, such as Greene, however, feel that through Malgudi they could vividly understand the Indian experience. Narayan's evocation of small-town life and its experiences through the eyes of the child protagonist Swaminathan in ''
Swami and Friends'' is a good sample of his writing style. Simultaneous with Narayan's pastoral idylls,
Mulk Raj Anand, was similarly gaining recognition for his writing set in rural India, focused on brutality, with divisions of caste, class and religion. According to writer
Lakshmi Holmström, "The writers of the 1930s were fortunate because after many years of use, English had become an Indian language used widely and at different levels of society, and therefore they could experiment more boldly and from a more secure position."
Kamala Markandeya is an early writer in IEL who has often grouped with the trinity of R.K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao. The contributions of
Manoj Das and
Manohar Malgoankar to growth of IEL largely remains unacknowledged.
Later history

Among the later writers, the most notable is
Salman Rushdie, born in India and now living in the UK. Rushdie, with his famous work ''
Midnight's Children'' (
Booker Prize 1981, Booker of Bookers 1992, and Best of the Bookers 2008), ushered in a new trend of writing. He used a hybrid language – English generously peppered with Indian terms – to represent India. His works are categorised as
magic realism.
Nayantara Sehgal was one of the first female Indian writers in English to receive wide recognition. Her fiction deals with India's elite responding to the crisis engendered by political change. She was awarded the 1986
Sahitya Akademi Award for English, for her novel, ''
Rich Like Us'' (1985), by the
Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters.
Anita Desai, who was shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times, received a Sahitya Akademi Award in 1978 for her novel ''Fire on the Mountain'' and a British
Guardian Prize for ''The Village by the Sea''. Her daughter
Kiran Desai won the 2006
Man Booker Prize
The Booker Prize, formerly the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a prestigious literary award conferred each year for the best single work of sustained fiction written in the English language, wh ...
for her second novel, ''
The Inheritance of Loss''.
Ruskin Bond received Sahitya Akademi Award for his collection of short stories ''Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra'' in 1992. He is also the author of a historical novel ''
A Flight of Pigeons'', which is based on an episode during the
Indian Rebellion of 1857.
Vikram Seth, author of ''
The Golden Gate'' (1986) and ''
A Suitable Boy'' (1994) is a writer who uses a purer English and more realistic themes. Vikram Seth is notable both as an accomplished novelist and a prolific poet.
Another writer who has contributed immensely to the Indian English Literature is
Amitav Ghosh who is the author of ''
The Circle of Reason'' (his 1986
debut novel
A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to pu ...
), ''
The Shadow Lines'' (1988), ''
The Calcutta Chromosome'' (1995), ''
The Glass Palace'' (2000), ''
The Hungry Tide'' (2004), and ''
Sea of Poppies'' (2008), the first volume of ''The Ibis'' trilogy, set in the 1830s, just before the
Opium War, which encapsulates the colonial history of the East. Ghosh's latest work of fiction is ''
River of Smoke'' (2011), the second volume of ''The Ibis'' trilogy.
Rohinton Mistry is an India born Canadian author who is a
Neustadt International Prize for Literature laureate (2012). His first book ''
Tales from Firozsha Baag'' (1987) published by
Penguin Books
Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...
Canada is a collection of 11 short stories. His novels ''
Such a Long Journey'' (1991) and ''
A Fine Balance'' (1995) earned him great acclaim. In a similar vein,
M. G. Vassanji was born in
Kenya
Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...
of Indian descent and emigrated to Canada; he twice won the
Giller Prize, for ''
The Book of Secrets'' (1994) and ''
The In-Between World of Vikram Lall'' (2003), as well as the
Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction for ''A Place Within: Rediscovering India'' (2008), a travelogue.
Shashi Tharoor, in his ''
The Great Indian Novel'' (1989), follows a story-telling (though in a satirical) mode as in the
Mahabharata drawing his ideas by going back and forth in time. His work as UN official living outside India has given him a vantage point that helps construct an objective Indianness.
Vikram Chandra is another author who shuffles between India and the United States and has received critical acclaim for his first novel ''Red Earth and Pouring Rain'' (1995) and collection of short stories ''Love and Longing in Bombay'' (1997). His namesake
Vikram A. Chandra is a renowned journalist and the author of ''The Srinagar Conspiracy'' (2000).
Suketu Mehta is another writer currently based in the United States who authored ''
Maximum City'' (2004), an autobiographical account of his experiences in the city of Mumbai. In 2008,
Aravind Adiga received the Man Booker Prize for his debut novel ''
The White Tiger''.
Recent writers in India such as
Arundhati Roy and
David Davidar show a direction towards contextuality and rootedness in their works. Arundhati Roy, a trained architect and the 1997 Booker prize winner for her ''
The God of Small Things'', calls herself a "home grown" writer. Her award-winning book is set in the immensely physical landscape of
Kerala
Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...
. Davidar sets his ''The House of Blue Mangoes'' in Southern
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...
. In both the books, geography and politics are integral to the narrative. In his novel ''Lament of Mohini'' (2000),
Shreekumar Varma touches upon the matriarchal system and the ''sammandham'' system of marriage as he writes about the Namboodiris and the aristocrats of Kerala.
Jahnavi Barua, a
Bangalore
Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...
-based author from
Assam
Assam (, , ) is a state in Northeast India, northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra Valley, Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . It is the second largest state in Northeast India, nor ...
has set her critically acclaimed collection of short stories ''Next Door'' on the social scenario in Assam with insurgency as the background.
The stories and novels of
Ratan Lal Basu reflect the conditions of tribal people and
hill people of West Bengal and the adjacent states of Sikkim, Bhutan and Nepal. Many of his short stories reflect the political turmoil of West Bengal since the Naxalite movement of the 1970s. Many of his stories like ''Blue Are the Far Off Mountains'', ''The First Rain'' and ''The Magic Marble'' glorify purity of love. His novel ''Oraon and the Divine Tree'' is the story of a tribal and his love for an age old tree.
Poetry
Early notable poets in English include
Derozio,
Michael Madhusudan Dutt,
Toru Dutt,
Romesh Chunder Dutt,
Sri Aurobindo,
Sarojini Naidu, and her brother
Harindranath Chattopadhyay. Notable 20th Century authors of English poetry in India include
Dilip Chitre,
Kamala Das,
Eunice De Souza,
Nissim Ezekiel,
Kersy Katrak,
Shiv K. Kumar,
Arun Kolatkar,
P. Lal,
Jayanta Mahapatra,
Dom Moraes,
Gieve Patel,
A. K. Ramanujan,
Madan Gopal Gandhi, and
P C K Prem among several others.
The younger generation of poets writing in English include
Abhay K,
Arundhathi Subramaniam
Arundhathi Subramaniam is an Indian poet and author, who has written about culture and spirituality.
Life and career
Subramaniam is a poet and writer based in Mumbai. She is the author of 13 books of poetry and prose.
She has received the Ra ...
,
Anju Makhija,
Bibhu Padhi,
Ranjit Hoskote
Ranjit Hoskote (born 1969) is an Indian poet, art critic, cultural theorist and independent curator. He has been honoured by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, with the Sahitya Akademi Golden Jubilee Award and the Sah ...
,
Sudeep Sen,
Smita Agarwal,
Makarand Paranjape,
Jeet Thayil,
Jaydeep Sarangi,
Mani Rao,
Jerry Pinto,
K. V. Dominic,
Meena Kandasamy,
Nalini Priyadarshni,
Gopi Kottoor,
Tapan Kumar Pradhan,
Rukmini Bhaya Nair,
Robin Ngangom,
Vihang A. Naik and
K Srilata.
Modern expatriate Indian poets writing in English include
Agha Shahid Ali,
Sujata Bhatt,
Richard Crasta,
Yuyutsu Sharma,
Tabish Khair and
Vikram Seth.
Alternative writing
India's experimental and
avant garde counterculture is symbolized in the Prakalpana Movement. During the last four decades this bilingual
literary movement has included
Richard Kostelanetz,
John M. Bennett,
Don Webb,
Sheila Murphy and many others worldwide and their Indian counterparts. Prakalpana fiction is a fusion of prose, poetry, play, essay, and pictures.
See also
*
Indian literature
*
Indian poetry in English
*
List of English poets from India
*
Literature from North East India
References
Further reading
*Auddy, Ranjan Kumar. "In Search of Indian English: History, Politics and Indigenisation. London & New York: Routledge, 2020 & 978-0-367-35271 & 978-0-429-33160-2
*Haq, Kaiser (ed.). ''Contemporary Indian Poetry''.Columbus: Ohio State University Press,1990.
*Haq, Rubana (ed.). ''The Golden Treasury of Writers Workshop Poetry''. Kolkata: Writers Workshop, 2008.
*Hoskote, Ranjit (ed.). ''Reasons for Belonging: Fourteen Contemporary Indian Poets.'' Viking/Penguin Books India, New Delhi, 2002.
*Singh, Bijender. "Indian Writing in English: Critical Insights." New Delhi, Authorspress, 2014.
Indian Writing in English , Men and Dreams in the Dhauladhar by Novels by Indian Authors
Kochery C Shibu
*Joseph, Margaret Paul. "Jasmine on a String: a Survey of Women Writing English Fiction in India." Oxford University Press, 2014.
*King, Bruce Alvin. ''Modern Indian Poetry in English: Revised Edition''. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987, rev. 2001. ("the standard work on the subject and unlikely to be surpassed" — Mehrotra, 2003).
*King, Bruce Alvin. ''Three Indian Poets: Nissim Ezekiel, A K Ramanujan, Dom Moraes''. Madras: Oxford University Press, 1991.
*Mehrotra, Arvind Krishna (ed.). ''The Oxford India Anthology of Twelve Modern Indian Poets''. Calcutta: Oxford University Press, 1992.
*Mehrotra, Arvind Krishna (ed.). ''A History of Indian Literature in English''. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. Distributed in India by Doaba Books Shanti Mohan House 16, Ansari Road, New Delhi.
*Parthasarathy, R. (ed.). ''Ten Twentieth-Century Indian Poets (New Poetry in India)''. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1976.
*Prem, PCK. ''English Poetry in India: A Comprehensive Survey of Trends and Thought Patterns'' New Delhi: Authorspress, 2011.
*Reddy, T. Vasudeva. ''A Critical Survey of Indo-English Poetry'' New Delhi: Authorspress, 2016.
*Roy, Pinaki. "''Encountering the West'': A Very Brief Overview of the Indian Diasporic Novelists". ''Journal of Higher Education and Research Society'' (ISSN 2321-9432) 1(1), October 2013: http://herso.org/vol-1-issue-1-oct-2013/
*Roy, Pinaki. “''Dramatic Chronicle'': A Very Brief Review of the Growth of Indian English Plays”. ''Indian Drama in English: Some Perspectives''. Ed. Kaushik, A.S. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors Pvt. Ltd., 2013 (). pp. 272–87.
*Sadana, Rashmi. "Writing in English," in ''The Cambridge Companion to Modern Indian Culture''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
*Sadana, Rashmi. ''English Heart, Hindi Heartland: the Political Life of Literature in India''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012.
*Shivdasani, Menka (ed.). ''Anthology of Contemporary Indian Poetry'' : USA, BigBridge.Org,
Michael Rothenberg, 2004.
*Souza, Eunice de. "Nine Indian Women Poets", Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1997.
*Souza, Eunice de. ''Talking Poems: Conversations With Poets''. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999.
*Souza, Eunice de. ''Early Indian Poetry in English: An Anthology : 1829-1947.'' New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005.
*Srikanth, Rajini. ''The World Next Door: South Asian American Literature and the Idea of America. Asian American History and Culture. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2004.
*Mahapatra, Jayanta & Sharma, Yuyutsu (ed.). ''Ten: The New Indian Poets''. New Delhi: Nirala Publications, 1993. http://niralapublications.com/new-release-ten-the-new-indian-poets/
*Jha, Vivekananad. (ed) ''
The Dance of the Peacock''. Canada: Hidden Brook Press, 2014.
{{Authority control
Indian literature by language