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

An appreciative close reading arranged with separate but unconnected chapters for
each work:
Chap 1 perceives The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian (1972) as an exercise in
descriptive ethnology.
Chap 2 Reveals Hindu philosophic search for inner knowledge works against external worldly
awareness practised by travel writing.
Chap 3 designates The Continent of Circe (1974) as a descriptive-analytical, satirical work.
Chap 4 finds bureaucratisation the defining factor in To Live or Not to Live (1970).
Chap 5 offers the view that the Hindu pursuit of knowledge was never rational but rather
supranational in The Intellectual in India (1967).
Chap 6 refers to his work as an expository prose style based on:
a) concreteness of diction
b) realistic detail
c) extensive use of non-English words
d) encyclopaedic knowledge
e) unhibited boldness
f) personal anecdotes.
Attends to structural concerns. Formalist analysis.
C. D. NARASIMHAIAH. "Nirad C. Chaudhuri: The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian"
The Indian Critical Scene: Controversial Essays 1990 Chap 8 85-95
Attacks Chaudhuri for his colonial cringe, egoism and pedantry. Compares
Chaudhuri's work to Nehru's Autobiography (1962) and find the latter well-written and a rare
achievement in the genre. Formalist analysis.
NIVEN, Alastair. "Crossing the Black Waters: Nirad C. Chaudhuri's A Passage to
England and V. S. Naipaul's An Area of Darkness" Ariel (Calgary, Canada) Vol. 9 July
1978 21-36
Compares Chaudhuri's and Naipaul's travel writing books and finds them exercises in
self-discovery obsessed with the history of imperialism. Examines their colonised usage of the
imposed English language and reveals it as the central concern of these writers. Traces the
nexus of colonialism and imperialism and its consequences for Indian society.
NIVEN, ALASTAIR. "Nirad Chaudhuri and Modern Indian Literature" in Individual and
Community in Commonwealth Literature ed Daniel Massa, Malta: Old University Press,
1979: 196-201.
Examines Chaudhuri's oeuvre and its encounter with the complexity of imperialism.
Questions the differing reception of Chaudhuri's work in India, where few critics esteem him,
and Britian, where his prose is highly praised. Analyses Chaudhuri's contention that the
history of India has been a culture in decline brought about by the stultifying conservatism of
Hindu ethics.
NIVEN, ALASTAIR. :Contrasts in the Autobiography of Childhood: Nirad Chaudhuri, Janet
Frame and Wole Soyinka” in MCDERMOTT, DOIREANN ed. Autobiographical and
Biographical Writing in Commonwealth Literature Barcelona: Sabadell, 1984:175-180.
Many auto/biographies rush through childhood, selecting only details indicating
predestined adult greatness. Better works capture the present-tense fantasy of childhood.
Chaudhuri differs from Frame and Soyinka in representing himself as an already adult infant.
“Indian autobiographies ... have a public aspect and a sense of history” and Chaudhuri links