This collection of essays is meant to be a survey of the Novel in twelve major Indian languages during the period 1950 to 1980. While seeking to bring into focus the major trends and tendencies that characterise the growth of the Novel in these languages, the book atempts to explore the traditions being established in Indian Novel today and the new directions the Novel is likely to take in our languages.

Gobinda Prasad Sarma convincingly shows how the Assamese Novel reflects the Assamese society and how experimentation with new techniques has widened the horizons of Assamese Novel and K. Sivathamby, through a brilliant analysis of the interconnection between the societal factors and development of the Novel, portrays the rise of the Tamil Novel to new heights during the period. While I. K. Sharma shows how Hindi Novel has passed imperceptibly from the wonderland of fancy to the hinterland of society and the borderland of psyche.

Shyamala A. Narayan predicts a bright future for Indian English Novel on the basis of her assessment of such writers as Mulk Raj Anand, R. K. Narayan, Raja Rao, Manohar Malgonkar, Anita Desai and Arun Joshi. Jatindra Kumar Nayak brings out the tension in post-independent Oriya Novel between the idealism of the freedom struggle and the values of a commercial society; K. M. Tharakan describes the rich complexity hints at the possibility of a blend of post-modernist and leftist trends and Ila Pathak shows how in Gujrati the traditional novel and the experimental novel are growing side by side.

To Lila Ray, who traces the diverse trends in Bengali Novel, the most remarkable change is in the political novel; but to Prabhakar Rao, who describes the ‘wide range of exploration’ in Telugu Novel, the Telugu novelist ‘appears unable to rise above the mediocre’. Narinder Singh sees Punjabi Novel ‘at the take -off stage but gives a word of caution against the increasing use of colloquial dialect by the novelists; Seshagiri Rao traces the traditions established in Kannada Novel by the writers of the Navodaya period, Navya period and the Progressive Movement.

Finally, Balachandra Nemade, in his inimitable style, anatomizes the positive and negative trends in the growth of Marathi Novel and gives a passionate call to revolutionise criticism and ‘cure Marathi of its present poverty of taste’.