Between Two Worlds: Nation, Rushdie and Postcolonial Indo-English Fiction

This work is about the narration of nation in the novels of Salman Rushdie and in post-Rushdie Indo-English fiction. It is an attempt to evaluate the articulation of national identity in these narratives as part of their endeavor to forge a postcolonial rupture with colonial history. While the tradition tries to retrieve its right to narrate its own story, the deep contradiction at the heart of these narratives is expressed in their conventions by which the native makes his reappearance in the postcolonial context and versions of nation often emerge as the underbelly of their colonial counterparts. While such projections of national identity may be a part of the still continuing colonial cultural legacy, the literary and academic success of such exotic ventures play no less significant a role in the production and proliferation of these narratives, mostly published in the West.