Genre Fiction of New India: Post-millennial Configurations of Crick Lit, Chick Lit and Crime Writing

Abstract

The post-millennial publishing scene of Indian fiction in English within India has proved explosive with significant departures in Chick Lit, crime writing, detective fiction, narratives referred to as ‘mythology’ as well as young, urban India storylines. The identity of Indian fiction in English has changed significantly and also relatively quickly in the last 15 years. This change can be explained in part by a rise in commercial Indian fiction over Indian ‘literary fiction’. The latter term—often ‘regarded as coeval with “Indian English literature” per se’ according to Suman Gupta (2012, p. 47)—has dominated the ‘postcolonial’ Indian literary scene in English for many years. Of the new Indian ‘commercial fiction’, Gupta explains that it is a domestic product, consumed primarily within India and that its narratives are of India, primarily for Indians. He describes it as ‘the gossipy cafe of Indian writing in English at home’ (2012, p. 47) underscoring its difference from the more ‘literary’ Indian writing in English which finds its home in the West.