Emergence of Young Adult Fiction in Indian English

Abstract

The novel is the major literary forms appropriated in Indian Writing in English from the Western canon. Most Indian fiction writers are true to the English tradition of novel writing both in theme and treatment. They deal with a wide ranging of thematic concerns and techniques and they adopt the narrative techniques already experimented in the West. Of course, there are some novelists like Salman Rushdie and Amitav Ghosh who stand out from the rest for their bold experiment. Interestingly, some writers during the first decade of the twenty first century have employed young adults and their points of view to deal with Indian social realities for the first time in the history of Indian fiction in English. Indian Fiction in English has branched out into a new sub-genre — young adult/adolescence novel — in the hands of Arvind Adiga, Vikas Swarup, and Chetan Bhagat. This paper critically examines the forms and themes of young adult fiction in Indian English.