Indian novelists: empire writes back!

Nalaka GUNAWARDENE and Vindana ARIYAWANSA

In recent decades, fiction writers of Indian origin have become a force to reckon with in writing in English for a domestic and global readership. Some of these writers live in India while others are part of the Indian diaspora spread in different parts of the world. They have shaped a literary tradition of their own, drawing on India’s rich cultural and social heritage and infusing it with multiculturalism and vivid imagination.

The best among them are on par with English writers anywhere in the world, and have been winning a growing number of literary awards and increasingly dominating best-sellers lists. Some have summed it up as the ‘Empire writes back’.

We start today’s quiz with some questions on a few of these writers.

1. Indian journalist and author Aravind Adiga’s debut novel, The White Tiger, won the 2008 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, a leading global literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations. In 2009, he released his second book, Between the Assassinations, featuring 12 interlinked short stories. In June 2011, he published his second novel. What is it called?

2. Amitav Ghosh is an Indian-Bengali author known for his evocative fiction writing in the English language. His novels The Circle of Reason (1986), The Shadow Lines (1988), The Calcutta Chromosome (1995), The Glass Palace (2000), The Hungry Tide (2004) have won wide acclaim and several literary awards. In 2008, he embarked on writing what he calls the Ibis Trilogy, in which the first book was called The Sea of Poppies. In the summer of 2011, he has just published the second novel in the trilogy. What is its title?

3. The Mistress of Spices was a 2005 Hollywood movie by Paul Mayeda Berges starring Aishwarya Rai, Dylan McDermott and Nitin Ganatra. It is the mystical tale of Tilo, an Indian girl who has the ability of foreseeing the future, who works for a spice shop in San Francisco. The movie was based on the 1997 novel by the same name by which Indian woman author?

4. This Caribbean island makes up the principal territory for two independent nations. One is the only independent French speaking country in the Caribbean. The other is the Dominican Republic. It is the tenth-most-populous island in the world, and the most populous in the Americas. It is the second largest island in the Caribbean (after Cuba) and the 22nd-largest island in the world. Name this island.

5. This scientist is best known for developing the concept of atoms into a scientific theory which became the foundation for modern nuclear chemistry. He expressed his atomic theory in his 1803 work, New System of Chemical Philosophy. Who was he?

6. Amazing Grace is a British feature film about the long campaign by social activists and a few concerned Parliamentarians against the slave trade. It was directed by Michael Apted, and was released in 2007 to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the date on which the British Parliament finally voted to ban the transport of slaves by British subjects, thus ending a mass-scale human exploitation that had lasted for a long time. Name the accomplished Welsh actor who played the role of William Wilberforce, the leader in the anti-slavery campaign.

7. The online encyclopedia Wikipedia is one of the largest online collaborations in the world. Since its creation in 2001, Wikipedia has grown rapidly into one of the largest free-access reference websites, and now attracts over 400 million unique visitors every month (as of March 2011). In May 2011, its creators and supporters launched a global petition to have it entered into a prestigious global list that recognizes and celebrates masterpieces of human creative genius and natural wonders. The petition is open for global online signing by anyone until January 2012. If successful, Wikipedia would be the first ever digital entity in the highly selective list to which only a few new additions are made every year. What is this list?

8. First Orbit, a new documentary film that reconstructs Yuri Gagarin’s historic first spaceflight, was released for free viewing on YouTube on 12 April 2011. Gagarin’s original spacecraft did not have space or capacity for filming, so there is no visual record of what he saw. First Orbit has been partly filmed by Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli, currently on a long-duration mission at the International Space Station (ISS) in Earth orbit. By matching the orbital path of ISS, as closely as possible, to that of Gagarin’s Vostok 1 spaceship and filming the same vistas of the Earth through the new giant cupola window, the film has captured a new digital high definition view of the Earth below, half a century after Gagarin first witnessed it. Name the British writer, broadcaster and film maker who has directed First Orbit.

9. He is a French photographer, journalist and reporter who for the past decade has been photographing and filming the world from the air – on balloons, helicopters and planes - offering a new look at our home planet. His photo exhibition ‘Earth from Above’, which premiered in Paris in 2000, became a global sensation and travelled to cities around the world to reach over 130 million visitors by 2008. In 2009, he released the film Home, which was shot entirely from the air in over 50 countries. The film provokes viewers to think and understand how our collective footprint is having a negative impact on the planet and ourselves. Who is this man who shows us our world in a new light?

10. It was a sea port located opposite Mannar on the mouth of Malvathu River the north-eastern coast of Sri Lanka. It was the most important trading post and sea port in the Island prior to the 13th Century, when there was thriving Indian Ocean trade: ships from various countries are said to have sold and exchanged merchandise and also took away pearls, precious stones, cinnamon, elephants, peacocks, spices and other products from Sri Lanka. By what name was this seaport then known?

11. In late June 2011, the United Nations officially declared that for only the second time in human history, an infectious disease has been wiped off the face of the earth due to concerted public health efforts. The first such disease was smallpox, which was eradicated in 1979. What is this second disease, the campaign against which was launched in 1945?

12. Since smallpox was declared eradicated at the end of 1979, several other diseases - like polio, Guinea worm, river blindness, elephantiasis, measles and iodine deficiency - have frustrated intensive, costly efforts to do the same to them. The last naturally occurring case of indigenous smallpox (Variola minor) was diagnosed in a man named Ali Maow Maalin, a hospital cook in which country in Africa on 26 October 1977?

13. The Frisbee is the simple plastic disc that became a billion-dollar craze and a symbol of many hours of harmless fun on beaches, parks all over the world. Its inventor died, at the age of 90, in 2010. Who was he?

14. First held in 1976, the seven-a-side Rugby tournament in Hong Kong, better known as Hong Kong Sevens, has been won 12 times by a certain island country well known for their rugby players. They won it in 1977-78, 1980, 1984, 1990-92, 1997-99, 2005 and 2009. What is this country?

15. Anacardium occidentale is the botanical name of a popular fruit grown in Sri Lanka. It is high in Iron and Calcium, and is also a good source of Magnesium and Copper. By what name is this fruit commonly known?

Answers will be published next week.

Last week’s answers
1. Stanford University in California
2. 10 to the power of 100 (that is, the digit 1 followed by one hundred zeros)
3. Vinton Gray “Vint” Cerf
4. Bryce Courtenay
5. Ride of the Valkyries, by Richard Wagner
6. Then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
7. Peter Falk
8. “Les Diaboliques’’ (1955)
9. Michael Gerard “Mike” Tyson
10. Carlos Slim Helu
11. Daltonism Colour blindness, named after John Dolton (1766 -1844)
12. The Brothers Grimm (Wilhelm and Jacob)
13. Adam Smith
14. Alec Bedser
15. Toronto, Canada