Inlays of Subjectivity by Nikhil Govind

Inlays of Subjectivity is an incisive exposition of the theme of subjectivity and selfhood in modern Indian literature. Scholarship in Indian literary studies tends to be divided along the lines of region, language, chronology, class, and caste. This book traverses and connects these contentious lines to examine some of the most influential literary texts to emerge from India in the last hundred years. It analyses literary expressions of intense emotionality—suffering, humiliation, creativity, and strife—while inhabiting the linkages between justice, speech, and affect. Nikhil Govind interprets a range of influential novelists such as Rabindranath Tagore and Saratchandra Chatterjee (Bengali), Agyeya (Hindi), Ismat Chughtai (Urdu), Krishna Sobti (Hindi), Urmila Pawar (Marathi), and K.R. Meera (Malayalam), to unearth narrative continuities of reflexive subject positions in relation to ongoing debates around free speech and egalitarianism