india author m 1- a-nan - University of Wollongong

Criticism
ABIDI, S.Z.H. Kamala Markandaya's 'Nectar in a Sieve' Bareilly: Prakash Book Depot,
1977, 127 pp.
ADKINS, J.F. "Kamala Markandaya: Indo-Anglian Conflict as Unity" Journal of South Asian
Literature 10.1 (1974):89-102.
AFZAL-KHAN, FAWZIA. "Genre and Ideology in the novels of Four contemporary Indo-
Anglian novelists: R.K. Narayan, Anita Desai, Kamala Markandaya and Salman Rushdie"
DAI 47.4 (October 1986):1328A.
APPASWAMY, S. P. "The Golden Honeycomb: A Saga of Princely Life in India." JIWE
6,no.2 (1978): 56-63.
Mainly descriptive, with a paragraph analysing the linguistic style. The novel presents a
more truthful picture of the Raj's dealings with princely India than Anand's Private Life of an
Indian Prince or Malgonkar's The Princes. Markandaya brings out the shrewdness of the
British policy, which would give a prince the kind of education calculated to make him an
English country gentleman, out of touch with the Indian reality. Events, such as the Delhi
Durbar, are presented from a multiple point of view. Women did not have a place in public
life, but their overpowering influence is presented well by Markandaya.
ARGYLE, BARRY. "Kamala Markandaya's Nectar in a Sieve." Ariel 4, no.1 (1973): 35-45.
Reprinted in The Literarv Half-Yearly 15, no.1 (1974): 73-84.
Reading Nectar in a Sieve as a sociological document diverts attention from its
organisation as a novel, the sensibility that informs it, and the moral intelligence that controls
the sensibility, aspects which are brought out well in Argyle's close reading of the text. The
fact that life is circular, not linear, controls the organisation of this story of a simple woman.
The novel begins with Rukmani, the narrator, an old woman recalling her experiences of the
night. Eighteen of the novel's thirty chapters contain in their first sentence a reference to time;
in the first sentence of the other twelve chapters, there is a reference to journeys, that is,
movement in time. Argyle pays great attention to the words on the page, and demonstrates
how carefully crafted the novel is.
AITHAL, S KRISHNAMOORTHY and RASHMI AITHAL. "East-West Encounter in Four
Indo-English Novels." In Alien Voice: Perspectives on Commonwealth Literature, edited by
Avadhesh K. Srivastava (Lucknow: Print House, 1981): 84-100. ACLALS Bulletin Sixth
Series, no.1 (1982): 1-16.
Examines the variety of treatment of the theme in Kamala Markandaya's Some Inner
Fury (1955), Manohar Malgonkar's Combat of Shadows (1962), Raja Rao's The Serpent
and the Rope (1960) and Anita Desai's Bye-Bve Blackbird (1971). In Some Inner Furv, the
encounter is between a Hindu girl Mira and an Englishman in the nineteen-forties. Despite
wide differences in race and culture, they love each other deeply, but are wrenched apart by
political forces.
AITHAL, S. K. "Indo-British Encounter in Kamala Markandaya's Novels." Journal of South
Asian Literature 22, no.2 (1987): 49-59.
Thematic study. Markandaya examines Indo-British encounter through various
characters, situations, settings and points of view, people face insurmountable difficulties in