Notice – “Whatever Happened to Literature?” by Anjum Hasan | 01 March 2017, 3 pm| Room no. 60, Dept. of English, Arts Fac, DU

The Department of English, University of Delhi

is organizing a talk by

Anjum Hasan

on

Whatever Happened to Literature?

01 March 2017, Wednesday| 3 pm

Room no. 60, Department of English, Arts Faculty, North Campus,

University of Delhi

Abstract

As someone trying to make meaning of the Indian literary sphere through English, it seems to me that we’re passing through the best of times and the worst of times. More books are being published than ever before, many in, for us, new genres such as creative nonfiction and popular fiction. Yet even as interest in writing and publishing is growing, interest in literature – as value, as habitation, or even as aspiration – seems to be diminishing.

It has never been possible to impose a single narrative on Indian literature, not least because of the several languages and milieus in which it is written. Yet with the growth of the market for this literature, a falsely unifying publishing idiom comes to be associated with what is an increasingly fragmented and elusive subject. I’d like to explore in my talk some of the ‘stories’ that we tell ourselves about this literature today, how they jostle in our imaginations and shape us as readers and writers.

About the Speaker

Anjum Hasan is the author of the novels The Cosmopolitans, Neti, Neti and Lunatic in my Head, the short story collection, Difficult Pleasures, and the book of poems, Street on the Hill. She writes regularly on Indian literature, is books editor at The Caravan magazine and lives in Bangalore.