INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH - REVENGE OF THE NATIVE

Rushdie lit the way but Indian writing in English has taken a life of its own in the past few decades, with translated Indian fiction most recently having its moment in the sun

- BY AMIT DIXIT

When the 34-year-old Salman Rush- die published his second novel, Midnight's Children, in 1981, it catapulted him—and Indo-Anglian writing (or Indian Writing in English, as it's now called)—into the global literary limelight. Not only did the novel about a fledgling nation grappling with the aftermath of Independence win the Booker Prize that year, it bagged the Booker of Bookers in 1993 to mark the 25th anniversary of the prize, and then the Best of the Booker on the award's 45th anniversary in 2008.