Cold War Genres

Local and International in Hindi Literature

Gregory Goulding

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9781438499581, 9781438499598
• eBook ISBN: 9781438499604
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Asian Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Argues that the post-independence period was a unique era of literary experimentation in Hindi literature, which must be read in the contexts of both local and global cultural, social, and literary history.

Cold War Genres explores post-independence Hindi literature, framing it within the sociopolitical backdrop of Nehruvian India during the early Cold War. The book underscores the pivotal role of Hindi's claims to be a national language following independence, which fostered a unique moment of literary innovation. Central to its narrative is the work of Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh, a pivotal figure in modern South Asian literature. Using Muktibodh's poetry, criticism, and fiction as a primary example, the book shows how literary form shapes a response to the internal contradictions of 1950s India, one that must be read in light of both the antinomies of Hindi literature and North India as well as the aesthetic debates and emerging ideas of global space during this time. Cold War Genres therefore functions as a lens to evaluate questions of genre and form shared by a range of literary cultures in the mid-twentieth-century decolonizing world. This book features extensive translations from Muktibodh's poetry and prose, including full translations of two poems "Brahmar?k?as" (The Brahman Demon) and "A?dhere me?" (In the Dark).

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Note on Transliteration and Translation
• Introduction
• 1 A Stream of Pure Sanskrit Curses: Caste, Knowledge, and Critique in the Long Poem
• 2 Realism, Romanticism, and the (Lower) Middle Class: The Problem of Aesthetic Process
• 3 Muktibodh’s Prose Fiction and the Question of the Real
• 4 The Long Poem between Genre and Form
• Conclusion: The Afterlives of Muktibodh
• Appendix: Full Translations of “Brahmarākṣas” (The Brahmin Demon) and “Aṃdhere meṃ” (In the Dark)
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index
• Back Cover