Arun Kolatkar and Literary Modernism in India

Laetitia Zecchini is a Research Fellow at the CNRS in Paris, France. She has published extensively on Arun Kolatkar and on modern Indian literature. Her research interests focus on contemporary Indian poetry and on the politics of literature, on postcolonial criticism, non-western modernisms, dalit literatures and South Asian literary history. She is the translator of Kolatkar’s Kala Ghoda Poems (2013) into French.

This is a powerful and energetic reading of an author whose work invites series consideration.

• Series Editor's PrefaceIntroductionIntroductionOn ‘selective traditions’ and Kolatkar’s invisibility Modernism in India: ‘Newness enters the world through acts of displacements’Life of a poet: Some elements of contextI. Bombay Bohemianism, Bombay CosmopolitanismThe ‘city of Strangers’ and the ‘fantastic conglomeration of clashing realities’ The Kala Ghoda bohemians: Dissent, deracination and belonging‘Welcome to the conspiracy’: Little magazines and small presses A ‘rooted errantry’ or the cosmopolitan local II. Marathi and English Cycles of Give-and-take: on Issues of Bilingualism and Translation, Orality and ReinventionKolatkar’s multilingualities: The poet as piebald animal Poetry India is Translation IndiaBhakti re-sung: The speaking voice, the singing voice and ‘Americanese’III. Seeing the World Anew: Recording and Defamiliarizing the Ordinary ‘Keep it’‘Look with all your eyes, Look!’: the Kala Ghoda stageTurning around: converting, disturbing and defamiliarizing perceptionIV: From Scrap to Art: recycling and transfiguring the world The art of assemblage: The ‘old junk shop’, the poet and the rag-pickerA malleable world: Second lives, new beginnings and wobbly lines Divine ready-mades: In praise of the impermanent present V. The Politics of Kolatkar I Life Turned Upside Down: Orchestrating and Exposing Chaos‘All laws break down’: The jaywalking poet and the challenge of dharma Sarpa Satra: The impossible-to-sanitize ritual of purificationFoundational refuseVI. The Politics of Kolatkar II Reclaiming History and Multivocality Voices of History, voices of sorrow: The poet, the storyteller and the unforgetful Historicity against Nativism: Challenging Hindu Nationalism Literature, censorship and the straightjacking of Indianness VII. By Way of Conclusion: the Trope of ‘Outsidedness’ and the Poet as Stranger Index