Critical Discourse in Punjabi

This volume forms a part of the Critical Discourses in South Asia series which deals with schools, movements and discursive practices in major South Asian languages. It offers crucial insights into the making of the Punjabi language and literature, and its critical tradition across a century. The book brings together English translation of major writings of influential figures dealing with literary criticism and theory, aesthetic and performative traditions and re-interpretations of primary concepts and categories in Punjabi. It presents 30 key texts in literary and cultural studies from Punjab from the beginning of development of Punjabi language to its present form, with most of them translated for the first time into English. These seminal essays cover interconnections with socio-historical events in the medieval, colonial and post-independence period in Punjab. They discuss themes such as spiritual and aesthetic visions, poetic and literary forms, modernism, progressivism, feminism, Dalit literature, power structures and social struggles, ideological values, cultural renovations and humanism.

Comprehensive and authoritative, this volume offers an overview of the history of critical thought in Punjabi literature in South Asia. It will be essential for scholars and researchers of Punjabi language and literature, literary criticism, literary theory, comparative literature, Indian literature, cultural studies, art and aesthetics, performance studies, history, sociology, regional studies and South Asian studies. It will also interest the Punjabi-speaking diaspora and those working on the intellectual history of Punjab and conservation of languages and culture.

Rana Nayar is Professor (Retired) from the Department of English & Cultural Studies, Panjab University, Chandigarh in 2017. His main areas of interest are World Drama/Theatre, Translation Studies, Literary Theory and Cultural Studies. A practising translator of repute (Charles Wallace India Trust Fellow & Sahitya Akademi Prize Winner), he has rendered around 12 modern classics of Punjabi into English. These include novels, short stories and poetry and range across the works of Gurdial Singh, Mohan Bhandari, Raghbir Dhand and Beeba Balwant, published by Macmillan, National Book Trust, Sahitya Akademi, Sterling, Fiction House, Katha, Rupa and Unistar et al. He also has one collection of poems Breathing Spaces (Unistar, Chandigarh) and four critical books, i.e., Edward Albee: Towards a Typology of Relationships (Prestige, New Delhi, 2003), Inter-sections: Essays on Indian Literatures, Translations and Popular Consciousness (Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, 2012), Gurdial Singh: A Reader (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 2012) and Cultural Studies in India (New York, London, New Delhi: Routledge, 2016), an anthology, edited along with Pushpinder Syal and Akshaya Kumar, to his credit. A committed theatre lover, he has directed over 20 major full-length productions, and has acted in almost as many.

Alpna Saini is Professor of English at Central University of Punjab, Bathinda, India. Her areas of interest include gender studies, cultural studies, Indian drama, Indian cinema and translation studies. She translates from Punjabi and Hindi into English and vice versa. She has extensively published research articles and translations from Punjabi and Hindi to English. She has published a book of critical essays on the drama of Girish Karnad titled Subjectivity as a Locus of Conflicts in Girish Karnad: a Discussion of his Plays. She has also edited and introduced a book titled Negotiating Boundaries: A Study of Bushra Ejaz’s Writings with Neetu Purohit. Her most recent work of translation was Blood Flowers: Selected Poems of Harbhajan Singh Hundal which she co-edited with Rajesh Sharma.

Tania Bansal completed her PHD in Comparative Literature from Central University of Punjab, Bathinda in 2017. After serving on the faculty of Chitkara University, Himachal Pradesh, she moved to Akal University, Talwandi Sabo (Punjab). Currently she is serving as Assistant Professor at Chandigarh University, Gharuan, Mohali. Her research interests are new historicism, feminism, partition history and translation.