The most spectacular phase that Indian English literature had ever seen was the emergence of Indian women novelists after independence. In the pre-independence era, there was hardly any Indian women novelist who had kept remarkable contribution in the field of English novel. Indian English novel that had started its journey as early as the late nineteenth century with the works of male writers, witnessed a long sterility of literary outputs from the side of women, though novels by as many as four women novelists- Raj Lakshmi Debi’s The Hindoo Wife or The Enchanted Fruit (1876); Toru Dutt’s unfinished novel, Bianca or The Young Spanish Maiden (1878); Krupabai Satthianadhan’s Kamala, A Story of Hindu Life (1895) and Saguna: A Story of Native Christian Life (1895); and Shevantibai M. Nikambe’s Ratanbai: A Sketch of a Bombay High Caste Hindu Young Wife appeared before the turn of the twentieth century but they lacked literary merit. Only after the independence, with the appearance of a group of women novelists like Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Kamala Markandaya, Nayantara Sahgal and Anita Desai that Indian English novel made a transition from long sterility to fertility in the field of feminist writings. The most distinctive feature that is seen in Jhabvala’s novels To Whom She Will (1955), The Householder (1960), Heat and Dust (1975) etc. is the subtle presentation of intricate human relationships, especially among the women in the Hindu joint family. Kamala Markandaya’s works present the East- West encounter. Her well-known works are Some Inner Fury (1955), Possession (1963), The Nowhere Man (1972), The Golden Honeycomb (1977) etc. Nayantara Sahgal’s works This Time of Morning (1968), A Situation in Delhi (1977) etc. concentrate on politics along with the quest of Indian women for sexual emancipation. Anita Desai took more interest in human psychology than surface socio-political realities. Her popular works are Cry, the Peacock (1963), Where Shall We Go This Summer (1975), Clear Light of Day (1980) etc.
Along with novelists like Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Kamala Markandaya, Nayantara Sahgal and Anita Desai, there were also other female novelists from the early nineteen fifties to the late nineteen seventies and they also need to be mentioned. They were female historical novelists Vimala Raina and Manorama Modak who wrote Ambapali (1962), Single in the Wheel (1978) respectively. The nineteen fifties that saw comparatively slow progress from sixties and seventies also produced pieces like Lotika Ghose’s White Dawns of Awakening (1950), Mrinalini Sarabhai’s This Alone is True (1952). Kamala Das’s Alphabet of Lust (1976) and Rama Mehta’s Inside the Haveli (1977) appeared in the late seventies.
Along with novelists like Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Kamala Markandaya, Nayantara Sahgal and Anita Desai, there were also other female novelists from the early nineteen fifties to the late nineteen seventies and they also need to be mentioned. They were female historical novelists Vimala Raina and Manorama Modak who wrote Ambapali (1962), Single in the Wheel (1978) respectively. The nineteen fifties that saw comparatively slow progress from sixties and seventies also produced pieces like Lotika Ghose’s White Dawns of Awakening (1950), Mrinalini Sarabhai’s This Alone is True (1952). Kamala Das’s Alphabet of Lust (1976) and Rama Mehta’s Inside the Haveli (1977) appeared in the late seventies.
