Random Thoughts: Essays in Criticism

Random Thoughts is a collection of fifteen essays in literary criticism, some revised, improved and reprinted, and others in print for the first time. These essays are the outcome of the author’s intensive reading and revaluation of a wide variety of Indian, British, African, Singaporean and Pakistani writers and their works in English. Ranging from William Shakespeare to Rabindranath Tagore, from Edward Said to Salman Rushdie, from Chinua Achebe to Edwin Thumboo, from Shiv K. Kumar to K. N. Daruwalla, from Shashi Deshpande to Cyrus Mistry, they are the evidence of exercises in critical intelligence. In addition, there are essays focused on the nature and function of transparency in autobiography, theoretical perceptions about the author-text relationship, Indian feminism, Indian English children’s literature, the Buddhist vision in English literature, and Pakistani poetry in English. The book, thus, addresses the works of different literary genres - poetry, fiction, drama, memoir, and translation - sensitively and with a freshness of approach. Since these writers mostly figure in the university syllabi in India and abroad, the book is a valuable contribution to the body of literary criticism, and is especially useful for students, teachers, researchers and readers with an interest in English literature.