Baidik Bhattacharya is Associate Professor of English at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. He is the author of the much-acclaimed book Postcolonial Writing in the Era of World Literature: Texts, Territories, Globalizations (2018). His works have appeared in some of the leading journals of our times: Critical Inquiry, New Literary History, Boundary 2, Modern Philology, Interventions, Postcolonial Studies, among others.

• Preface and acknowledgement; Introduction: formations of the literary sovereign; Part I. Epistemic Habits: 1. Ethnographic recension; 2. Colonial untranslatables; 3. Comparatism in the colony; Part II. Aesthetic Conventions: 4. Impure aesthetics; 5. Sanskrit on shagreen; 6. National enframing; Coda: Decolonization after world literature; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

'In this magisterial book, Baidik Bhattacharya develops a surprising thesis: that the modern conception of literature as an autonomous, self-directed cultural form was the product of a highly political process – the efforts of colonial British administrators to extend their sway in India and beyond. This is a compelling, revisionary genealogy of the contemporary idea of culture, and a major contribution to debates on the intertwined origins of world literature and modern empire.' David Damrosch, Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Comparative Literature, Harvard University

Baidik Bhattacharya is Associate Professor of English at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. He is the author of the much-acclaimed book Postcolonial Writing in the Era of World Literature: Texts, Territories, Globalizations (2018). His works have appeared in some of the leading journals of our times: Critical Inquiry, New Literary History, Boundary 2, Modern Philology, Interventions, Postcolonial Studies, among others.

• Preface and acknowledgement; Introduction: formations of the literary sovereign; Part I. Epistemic Habits: 1. Ethnographic recension; 2. Colonial untranslatables; 3. Comparatism in the colony; Part II. Aesthetic Conventions: 4. Impure aesthetics; 5. Sanskrit on shagreen; 6. National enframing; Coda: Decolonization after world literature; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

'In this magisterial book, Baidik Bhattacharya develops a surprising thesis: that the modern conception of literature as an autonomous, self-directed cultural form was the product of a highly political process – the efforts of colonial British administrators to extend their sway in India and beyond. This is a compelling, revisionary genealogy of the contemporary idea of culture, and a major contribution to debates on the intertwined origins of world literature and modern empire.' David Damrosch, Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Comparative Literature, Harvard University

Baidik Bhattacharya is Associate Professor of English at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. He is the author of the much-acclaimed book Postcolonial Writing in the Era of World Literature: Texts, Territories, Globalizations (2018). His works have appeared in some of the leading journals of our times: Critical Inquiry, New Literary History, Boundary 2, Modern Philology, Interventions, Postcolonial Studies, among others.

• Preface and acknowledgement; Introduction: formations of the literary sovereign; Part I. Epistemic Habits: 1. Ethnographic recension; 2. Colonial untranslatables; 3. Comparatism in the colony; Part II. Aesthetic Conventions: 4. Impure aesthetics; 5. Sanskrit on shagreen; 6. National enframing; Coda: Decolonization after world literature; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

'In this magisterial book, Baidik Bhattacharya develops a surprising thesis: that the modern conception of literature as an autonomous, self-directed cultural form was the product of a highly political process – the efforts of colonial British administrators to extend their sway in India and beyond. This is a compelling, revisionary genealogy of the contemporary idea of culture, and a major contribution to debates on the intertwined origins of world literature and modern empire.' David Damrosch, Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Comparative Literature, Harvard University