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

Ghose, Sudin N.
KATAMBLE, V.D. "Village and City in the Balaram Tetralogy of Sudhin Ghose" The
Literary Half-yearly 23, no.1 (1982): 128-38.
Many Indian novels deal with the theme of village-city encounter; Ghose presents the
most revealing picture of the seamy side of city life, especially in the last two novels of his
tetralogy, where the narrator comes of age. The theme figures in the earlier novels, too. And
Gazelles Leaping has the child studying in a kindergarten in a rural pocket near Calcutta, but
the city intrudes in the shape of wounded refugees from the riots in Calcutta. In The Cradle of
the Clouds, which has a rural setting, the scales are weighted in favour of the traditional
Panditji as opposed to the modern city-dweller, though there are evil forces in the village too.
Ghose tends to simplify the village-city encounter in terms of innocence versus experience or
good versus evil.
MUKHERJEE, MEENAKSHI. "The Tractor and the Plough: The Contrasted Visions of
Sudhin Ghose and Mulk Raj Anand," Indian Literature 13, no.1 (1970): 88-101. Rept. in
Indian Literature of the Past Fifty Years, edited by C. D. Narasimhaiah. 1970: 121-32.
Details? Rept. in Considerations: Twelve Studies of Indo-Anglian Writing, edited by
Meenakshi Mukherjee. New Delhi: Allied, 1977: 111-21.
Compares Sudhin N. Ghose’s tetralogy of novels about a Bengali orphan with Mulk
Raj Anand’s trilogy about Lalu, a Punjabi peasant boy. Analyses the novels in terms of
language and structure. Both novelists deal with the theme of growth, but they represent two
opposite poles of Indian English fiction in their technique, attitudes towards the past, and use
of myth, and have diametrically opposed views of art. Ghose values tradition, myth and the
past; he is sceptical about progress and scoffs at the idea of India rivalling America or Russia;
Anand believes in progress with a capital ‘P’. Ghose builds his novels around myths, while
Anand’s use is confined to giving a new ending to the traditional story of Sita in Gauri. Ghose
uses fantasy and elements of Sanskrit storytelling (like Raja Rao), while Anand is realistic.
MUKHERJEE, MEENAKSHI. The Twice-Born Fiction: Themes and Techniques of the
Indian Novel in English. New Delhi: Arnold Heinemann, 1971. pp?
Ghose is one of the novelists analysed. [cross index]
NARAYAN, SHYAMALA A. Sudhin N. Ghose. “Indian Writers” Series, vol. 5. New Delhi:
Arnold-Heinemann, 1973, 156pp.
First full-length study of Ghose, who used Indain methods of storytelling a decade
before Raja Rao’s The Serpent and the Rope. Ghose uses digressions, quotations from
Sanskrit and other Indian languages, songs, folk tales and legends to enrich the texture of his
fiction. Following an introductory, mainly biographical chapter, Narayan devotes a chapter
each to the four novels, “Other Works” and “Ghose and Indian Storytelling”. Contains a
bibliography, which lists Ghose’s unpublished works also.
NARAYAN, SHYAMALA A. “Reality and Fantasy in the Novels of Sudhin N. ghose.” In
Aspects of Indian Writing in English, edited by M. K. Naik (1979): 162-71.
Fantasy is an integral part of Ghose’s fiction, giving rise to the impression that it is not
realistic. By comparing his tetralogy with The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian by Nirad