Postcolonial Literary History and Indian English Fiction By Paul ...

Chapter 1

Desani Redressed: Baroque Folds and the Postcolonial Novel

Salman Rushdie created a major stir in Indian writing in English and in literature generally when he combined his knockabout humour with historical allegory to delineate the fragile plurality of the Indian nation-state in Midnight’s Children. The book has gone on to become a historical phenomenon in itself (as the “Booker of Bookers”, a watershed moment in the history of Indian fiction, and so on). However, it does not seem to have carried with it into critical fame the text its author pays tribute to as a foundational influence (Rushdie, “Interview”). While it is true that All About H. Hatterr by G. V. Desani has been reprinted after many years of not being available, it seems also to be the case that few people have responded with new readings of this complex, polyglot romp around the subcontinent by a Eurasian Tom Jones seen through the lenses of Tristram Shandy and The Goon Show. I would like to suggest that this is a great pity, since not only does Hatterr have things to say to contemporary India, but it can also lead us into instructive connections to other works and ideas beyond its subcontinental setting.