For decades now, C. D. Narasimhaiah has laid the standards
for critical study of Indian writing in English. Coolly, soberly, and with
detachment from the excitement of the moment, he has sought to evaluate the work
of India’s authors in English. Along with the pioneering writers themselves,
CDN, as Professor Narasimhaiah is popularly known, has made a signal
contribution in establishing Indian English writing, not only as an academic
discipline in the universities but also as one of the country’s own literatures.
This book covers in its compass poetry, autobiography,
novel, drama, and criticism. It turns the spotlight on the "poetic genius of
Toru Dutt and Aurobindo, the imaginative prose of Vivekananda and Jawaharlal
Nehru and the three senior novelists — Mulk Raj Anand, R. K. Narayan and Raja
Rao — together with the precise nature of their contribution". CDN’s provocative
assessment of some of today’s much-publicised Indian novelists, Rushdie, Vikram
Seth, Arundhati Roy is forcefully argued. So, too, his views on contemporary
Indian poetry in English — "so few of these poets have made any difference to
the quality of our living".
For the discriminating reader, The Swan and the Eagle
is an incomparable critical study of Indian English literature, offering
both a qualitative perspective and a measuring rod at a time of great growth in
the output of Indian writing in English.
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