Beyond English

Bhavya Tiwari is Assistant Professor in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages at the University of Houston, USA.

• AcknowledgmentsNote on TranslationIntroduction: Beyond English1. Why World Literature?Vishva SahityaUniversalism, Sahitya, and SahitTranslation and Vishva Sahitya2. Here Is World LiteratureThe World-making of the English GitanjaliTagore’s Translations, World-making, and Gitanjali in Prose-poemsWorld-making of Gitanjali in Spanish3. The World Is in the LyricsThe World in LyricsThe World-making of ChhayavaadWorld vs. Vishva Sahitya in Hindi4. (Woman) Author and the WorldWorld-making vs. VishvaVarma’s Sahitya and Vishva5. World in Translation, World in the OriginalChemmeen’s Vishva in India and BeyondTo Compare, To WorldWorld-making of Small ThingsIndia in the Original, India in TranslationCoda: World Literature and IndiaEndnotesBibliographyIndex

Tiwari has written a lively riposte to “world literature” mongering that is also a wide-ranging introduction to aspects of twentieth century Indian literature in various languages. Engaging the work of well-known writers like Rabindranath Tagore as well as of writers who should be better known, like the Hindi-language Chhayavaad poet Mahadevi Varma, Tiwari boldly changes the terrain over which the “world literature” debate is conducted by bringing to the fore critical terms through which the non-Anglophone writers that she examines themselves understood this debate. Through this decolonizing move she takes us not just beyond English but beyond “world literature” to what she intriguingly calls a “worldly comparative literature.”