Written Traces

  About the Novelist Anita Desai was an Indian English novelist and a professor of humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Born in Mussoorie in 1937 as Anita Mazumder to a German immigrant mother and a Bengali businessman father. Desai completed her higher secondary in the Queen Mary’s higher secondary school. Later she received her B.A. in English from Miranda House of the University of Delhi. She has been thrice shortlisted for the Booker Prize and also the recipient of the prestigious Sahity Akademi Award in 1978 for her novel “Fire on the Mountain”. She won the British Guardian Prize for “The Village By the Sea”. She is also on the advisory board of the Lalit Kala Akademi. She is married to Ashvin Desai and the mother of the Booker Prize winning novelist Kiran Desai. Influenced by Emily Bronte, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf and so on. She read Wuthering Heights at the age of 9. Important works  The Zigzag Way The Artist of Disappearance Ba...

  Mulk Raj Anand (1905-2004) The literature of early Indian English novel is identified especially with the trinity of Mulk Raj Anand, R.K. Narayan and Raja Rao.  They all began writing in the thirties of the 20th century. Out of which Mulk Raj Anand is the object of our consideration. He was born in 1905 in Peshawar, now in Pakistan to a Kshatriyas family.  His father was Lal Chand , a Silversmith turned sepoy who had left his hereditary occupation to attend school. Later he learnt English, took a British military examination and served in cantonments as a head clerk.  He was highly ambitious of his son, both in education and economic status. From his father, Anand inherited the artisan's industry and minute attention to detail. Also the revolutionary temperament. Anand's mother was a religious lady with a knack for storytelling.  Anand attended Khalsa College, Amritsar after completing his matriculation.  Later, graduated from Punjab University with honou...

  Henry Louis Vivian Derozio: The Harp of India & My Country! In Thy Day of Glory Past Both are Sonnets and nationalist poem. Harp is a musical instrument, the enterprise of the entire Indian civilization is being compared, if symbolically, with the Harp. It is about the sorry condition of the Harp. The Harp and it’s melodies music, which was once played by the past musicians, in this case of the countrymen of the past, is now remains in silence. The poet ends it with a question that if the notes of the past i.e the lost glory of the past i.e the debilitating decline of the culture India can be revived ?  If so , then he very much would like to be one of those who have the honour in the revival of the glory.  He uses the idea of past glory only to stress the present decay. Both poems has forward looking, inspirational aspect. Brave attempt to face the future with hope Themes:- Decline glory of the country Possible revival The poet’s own role in it Tory Dutt : The Lo...

The Origin of American Short Story: Although, there are many discrepancy in posing short story with an exact definition but the most agreeable would be “a short story is something that unfolds some kind of idea through the action and interaction of the characters at some definite time and place.” The only difference lies in the disparity of is meaning by various writers is the positioning of its elements I e to which one they prioritize the most. Sir Hugh Warpole , for instance, gave the plot it’s supremacy by calling it the distinguishing feature of a short story. Turgenev , gave the characters the importance in addressing a definition to a short story. But Edgar Allan Poe , the master practitioner of modern short story, while defining short story gave the supreme importance to a “pre-conceived effect” which should be realized through the plot of a story. In his famous review of Twice-Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Poe mentioned that there should not be any word written which doe...

ABOUT THE WRITER Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1834-1910), popularly known as Mark Twain, was an American writer, humourist, publisher and lecturer. He was lauded as “the greatest humourist the United States has produced” and entitled with “the father of American Literature” by William Faulkner.  Before Twain, the language used in producing literature in America was that of the puritanical i.e polished and refined as in the case of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Thus, the language missed the mark of exploring the ruggedness of the country. He was the first person in the history of American literature to ever use the regional dialect in a work of fiction. Very appropriately remarked by Earnest Hemmingway, " there were nothing like Mark Twain and there will not be anything quite like him". Twain was born in Florida, Missouri to John Marshall Clemens and Jane Lampton. However, at the age of three the family moved to Hannibal where Twain was raised. Samuel Langhorne Clemens, assumed the name o...