AN INSIDE OF THE OUTSIDERS: RESPONSE OF WESTERN CRITICS TO THE FICTION OF RAJA RAO (Pages 23-34) by Dr. Rajesh H. Mehta in THE ENGLISH INDIA / ISSN: 2321-1172 (Online); 2347-2634 (Print)

Indian English fiction, today, has acquired stubborn global identity. The pioneers of the genre R. K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand, and Raja Rao have collectively made endeavour to attract a serious attention of the readers all over the globewith their grand canvas. Raja Rao has included almost everything that other Indian writers have done in fiction – the family, the village, the city, the country, the world, and the concerns appropriate to them. Even while he is dealing with the social, material conditions of Indian life, almost always the metaphysical and the spiritual are lurking behind and therefore he has attracted the attention of critics from all over the world. The critical reception of Raja Rao as a creative writer possesses varied tone and texture. Including both, the inside circle (Indian critics) and the outside circle (non-Indian critics), the overall critical response is multi-dimensional. To critique that body of work, in general and Western critics in particular, would be my humble attempt in this paper. I would try to highlight the overtly visible features in their critical readings and at the same time it would be my polite attempt to justify them.creative writer possesses varied tone and texture. Including both, the inside circle (Indian critics) and the outside circle (non-Indian critics), the overall critical response is multi-dimensional. To critique that body of work, in general and Western critics in particular, would be my humble attempt in this paper. I would try to highlight the overtly visible features in their critical readings and at the same time it would be my polite attempt to justify them.Keywords: English fiction, global identity, Indian writers, material conditions, metaphysical, spiritual, multi-dimensional, Western critics etc.