Includes bibliographical references (p. [211]-263) and index.

Indian Writing in English: Structure of Consciousness, Literary History and Critical Theory -- Sri Aurobindo as a Poet: A Reassessment -- The Social and Political Vision of Sri Aurobindo -- Sri Aurobindo as a Critic -- Mulk Raj Anand: A Reappraisal -- Ideological Confrontation and Synthesis in Mulk Raj Anand's Conversations in Bloomsbury -- Balachandra Rajan's The Dark Dancer: A Critical Reading -- Myth and Imagery in Nissim Ezekiel's The Unfinished Man: A Critical Reading -- Humanity Defrauded: Notes toward a Reading of Anita Desai's Baumgartner's Bombay -- Alienation, Identity and Structure in Arun Joshi's The Apprentice -- Metaphysics and Metastructure of Appearance and Reality in Arun Joshi's The Last Labyrinth.

The Indian Imagination focuses on literary, developments in English both in the colonial and postcolonial periods of Indian history. Six divergent writers -- Aurobindo Ghose (Sri Aurobindo), Mulk Raj Anand, Balachandra Rajan, Nissim Ezekiel, Anita Desai, and Arun Joshi -- represent a consciousness that hits emerged from the confrontation between tradition and, modernity.The colonial fantasy of British India was finally dissolved in the first half of this century, only to be succeeded by another fantasy, that of the reinstituted sovereign nation-state. This study argues that the two phases of history-like the two phases of Indian writing in English -- together represent the sociohistorical process of colonization and decolonization and the affirmation of identity.