Title Fiction as history : the novel and the city in modern North India / Vasudha Dalmia

Published Albany : State University of New York Press, [2019] ©2017

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Description 1 online resource Contents Introduction: North Indian cities and the Hindi novel -- Towards modernity -- Merchant lives in Mughal Agra and British Delhi -- Wife and courtesan in Banaras -- The holy city as the field of action -- Lahore, Delhi, and the bitter truth of independence -- Modernist conundrums -- City, civilization, and nature -- A civil lines bungalow in Allahabad -- On the rooftops of Agra -- Culture, claustrophobia, and the capital of the new nation Summary "Vasudha Dalmia provides a panoramic view of the intellectual and cultural life of North India over a century, from the aftermath of the 1857 uprising to the end of the Nehruvian era. The North's historical cities, rooted in an Indo-Persianate culture, began changing more slowly than the Presidency towns founded by the British. Dalmia takes up eight canonical Hindi novels set in six of these cities--Agra, Allahabad, Banaras, Delhi, Lahore, and Lucknow--to trace a literary history of domestic and political cataclysms. Her exploration of the emerging Hindu middle classes, changing personal and professional ambitions, and new notions of married life provides a vivid sense of urban modernity. She argues that the radical social transformations associated with post-1857 urban restructuring, and the political flux resulting from social reform, Gandhian nationalism, communalism, Partition, and the Cold War shaped the realm of the intimate as much as the public sphere. Love and friendship, notions of privacy, attitudes to women's work, and relationships within households are among the book's major themes"-- Provided by publisher Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Print version record Subject Hindi fiction -- 19th century -- History and criticism Hindi fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism Literature and society -- India -- History -- 19th century Literature and society -- India -- History -- 20th century Civilization, Modern, in literature. Cities and towns in literature. Cities and towns in literature Civilization, Modern, in literature Hindi fiction Literature Literature and society SUBJECT India, North -- In literature Subject India North India Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc. History Form Electronic book ISBN 9781438476070 1438476078

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