Salman Rushdie: The Vintage Book of Indian Writing (1947-1997)

(c) 1997, Great Britain and India
(c) 1997, USA (published as ‘Mirrorwork: 50 Years of Indian Writing: 1947 – 1997

This book is mostly an anthology of Indian writing in English since independece. It contains one representative of writing that is not in English, a translation of Saadat Hassan Manto’s Toba Tek Singh. The book has stirred by quite a literary tempest in India, and among those who read literature from the sub-continent. Most of the attention has centered on Rushdie’s claim that Indian writing since 1947 has been significant only in English (with the sole exception of Manto). There are a lot of caveats, and Rushdie’s essay itself is sort of sloppy. Perhaps the best take on this I’ve come across is Rukmini Bhaya Nair’s essay titled What did Rushdie mean and why?