Vintage Book Of Indian Writing 1947 - 1997

Sep 16, 2025 2:06 AM

Author:Salman Rushdie,Elizabeth West,Seamus Deane

The Indian subcontinent has produced some of the world's greatest writers, and a body of literature unsurpassed in its sustained imagination, impassioned lyricism and sparkling tragi-comedy. Now Salman Rushdie and Elizabeth West have collected together the finest Indian writing of the last fifty years. Published to coincide with the anniversary of India's independence, it is an anthology of extraordinary range and vigour, as exciting and varied as the land that inspired it.

Including works by:

Mulk Raj Anand

Gita Mehta

Anjana Appachana

Ved Mehta

Vikram Chandra

Rohinton Mistry

Upamanyu Chatterjee

R. K. Narayan

Amit Chaudhuri

Jawaharlal Nehru

Nirad C. Chaudhuri

Padma Perera

Anita Desai

Satyajit Ray

Kiran Desai

Arundhati Roy

G. V. Desani

Salman Rushdie

Amitav Ghosh

Nayantara Sahgal

Githa Hariharan

I. Allan Sealy

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Vikram Seth

Firdaus Kanga

Bapsi Sidhwa

Mukul Kesavan

Sara Suleri

Saadat Hasan Manto

Shashi Tharoor

Kamala Markandaya

Ardashir Vakil

Reviews

Rushdie offers us a sweeping, birds' eye view of 50 years of good writing. He proves that there is an Indo-Anglian canon, and as he reaches our own time, he elects new contenders for future glory

—— Aamer Hussein , Independent

For matters both literary and (in the broad sense) political, one of the most informative, as well as enjoyable, [books about India] is The Vintage Book of Indian Writing 1947-97... Rushdie's fine introduction to this compendium of contemporary Indian prose...digresses fascinatingly on polylingualism, identity and dislocation

—— Independent on Sunday

This is the most impressive regional anthology I've seen for years. But then India is an awfully big region. With a population of nearly a billion, you would expect some crackerjack writers in their midst. And here they are.

—— Iain Sharp , The Sunday Star-Times (Auckland)

A great murder mystery

—— Daily Mail

Veronica is written in beautifully simple poetic prose...A joy from first page to last

—— New Statesman & Society

Lingering, sensuous and provocative, Christopher's unusual fantasy is a masterful exercise in the necromancy of poetry ripened into prose

—— Scotland on Sunday

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