|
Kamala
Markandaya: an appreciation
by
Charles R. Larson,
Chairman, Dept. of Literature
American University, Washington, D.C
Kamala Markandaya, the Indian novelist, died
in London, Sunday, 18 May, 2004. Born Kamala
Purnaiya in Mysore in 1924, she attended the
University of Madras, beginning in 1940, where
she studied history. From 1940 to 1947, she
worked as a journalist and also published
short stories in Indian newspapers, eventually
emigrating to England in 1948. There she met
her husband, Bertrand Taylor, by whom she
had one daughter. Fame and success came with
her first published novel, Nectar in a
Sieve (1954), a Book-of-the-Month Club
Main Selection and best-seller in the United
States. That novel was follow by nine others,
including A Handful of Rice (1966),
The Nowhere Man (1972), Two Virgins
(1973) and The Golden Honeycomb
(1977).
Markandaya was often linked to other Anglo-Indian
novelists at mid-point in the twentieth
century, including Mulk Raj Anand, R. K.
Narayan, Raja Rao, and Khushwant Singh,
though she was the only female of the group.
That special sensitivity demarcated all
of her work, especially Some Inner Fury
(1955) and Two Virgins. Readers of
her novels, however, were more often struck
by the tensions her characters encountered
when they left the rural areas for the cities.
Her two most popular novels, Nectar in
a Sieve and A Handful of Rice,
were taught in hundreds of American courses,
both in the public schools and the universities.
Always a very private person, Markandaya
granted few interviews and intentionally
kept out of the limelight. After 1948, England
became her home, with frequent trips back
to India in order to find the necessary
inspiration for her writing.
She is survived by her daughter, Kim Oliver.
|
