After Amnesia: Tradition and Change in Indian Literary Criticism

by G.N. Devy

After Amnesia is an original analysis of literary criticism in India. It describes what is recognized by common agreement as a crisis in Indian criticism, and explains it in historical terms.

Devy argues that the colonial experience in India gave rise to false images of the ancient Indian past as well as the modern West, and induced a state of ‘cultural amnesia’ and mistaken modes of literary criticism. It is this amnesia that is responsible for the belief among literary historians that accounting for critical tradition is necessary while constructing history of literature in modern Indian languages. Is it not conceivable for the languages like Marathi and Gujarati to have produced great literature for half a millennium without feeling the need to developing corresponding form of literary criticism? The author suggests that a proper assessment of literary criticism in Indian languages will become possible by postulating a more reliable literary history.

Drawing upon Marathi and Gujarati—and occasionally on Indian English—criticism, the author maintains that the crisis in contemporary literary criticism is caused primarily by a lapse in cultural memory. Since criticism that develops from a misleading historiography is ill-equipped to break new theoretical ground, the book also proposes a tentative historiography of Indian criticism.
This paperback edition is being re-issued to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of its first publication in 1992. It includes a new chapter in which the author discusses the effects of the momentous changes that took place since the book was first published, and their impact on the languages and linguistic creativity in India. He also details the nature of the profound changes that natural memory is undergoing due to the information technology and points to its impact on the nature of literary imagination.

Genres: Literary Criticism

147 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Ganesh N. Devy, formerly professor of English at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, a renowned literary critic and activist is founder and director of the Tribal Academy at Tejgadh, Gujarat, and director of the Sahitya Akademi’s Project on Literature in Tribal Languages and Oral Traditions. He was educated at Shivaji University, Kolhapur and the University of Leeds, UK. Among his many academic assignments, he has held fellowships at Leeds and Yale Universities and has been a Jawaharlal Nehru Fellow (1994-96).

Currently (2002 - 2007), he is a Professor at the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Commmunication Technology (DA-IICT), Gandhinagar.

Awards

He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for `After Amnesia', and the SAARC Writers’ Foundation Award for his work with denotified tribals. He has also won the reputed Prince Claus Award (2003) awarded by the Prince Claus Fund for his work for the conservation of the history, languages and views of oppressed communities in the Indian state of Gujarat.

Along with Laxman Gaikwad and Mahashweta Devi, he is one of the founders of The Denotified and Nomadic Tribes Rights Action Group (DNT-RAG).

Publications

* Critical Thought (1987)
* In Another Tongue (1992)
* Of Many Heroes (1997)
* India Between Tradition and Modernity (co-edited, 1997)
* Indian Literary Criticism: Theory & Interpretation (2002).
* Painted Words: An Anthology of Tribal Literature (editor, 2002).
* A Nomad Called Thief (2006)
* Keywords: Truth (contributor, date unknown)
* Vaanprastha (in Marathi, date unknown)
* Adivasi Jane Che (in Gujarati, date unknown).

Reviews

[Sarban Bandyopadhyay · Rating 5 out of 5]

An admirable attempt to mark and find a cure for the cultural amnesia pervading Indian literary criticism. There are windows to multiple research areas for scholars from a wide range of disciplines, while the clear and systematic prose provides insights with uninterrupted delight. The postscript registers the altered cultural scenario of early twenty first century. This is a work of honest, sincere, and rich scholarship.

[Jasss]

I really interested in this book because im a student of ma english