The editor:
E. V. Ramakrishnan is a well-known critic in Malayalam and English, besides being an Indian English poet and translator. He is a former Professor and Dean as well as Professor Emeritus of Central University of Gujarat. He has published critical works in Malayalam and English. Some of his publications include Indigenous Imaginaries: Literature, Moderniy, Region (2017), Bakhtinian Explorations of Indian Culture:Pluralism, Dialogue and Dogma through History (co-edited, 2019) and Literary Criticism in India (edited, 2021). He is a recipient of Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award (1995), Odakkuzhal Award (2018) and Kerala Sahitya Akademi’s Vilasini Award (2018). He received the Sahitya Akademi Award (2023) for his Malayalam work, Malayala Novelinte Deshakaalangal.

Introduction: A Transregional, Transcultural and Translational Poetics for Bhasha Literatures
E. V. Ramakrishnan

1. It there a “South Asian Poetics”?
Mrinal Kaul

2. Towards an Indian Poetics
Shamsur Rahman Faruqi

3. Revisiting Urdu Literary Culture: The Curious Case of Razmia
Anisur Rahman

4. Scripture or Poetry? Anandvardhana on How to Read an Epic
C. Rajendran

5. Spouses in thiNai Songs and Gaha Sattasai: A puththiNai Reading
Nirmal Selvamony

6. Re-inventing the Literary: Two Moments in the History of Kannada Tradition
Rajendra Chenni

7. A Local Habitation and a Name for Knowledge: The Case of Odia Bhasha Literature
Debendra K. Dash, Dipti R. Pattanaik

8. World Literature and the Literary Historiography of Pre-colonial South Asian Vernaculars: Towards a Methodological Model
Sachin Ketkar

9. Embodied Inheritance of a Dancing Philosophy: Text and Practice in the Chaitanya Charitamitra
Sukanya Sarbadhikary

10. Visual Poetics of the Vaishnava Literary Culture of Assam: Towards a Multimedial Exposition
Dhurjjati Sarma

11. The Social Imaginary and the Evolution of Modern Indian Literature
P. Raveendran

12. The Search for Form and Authenticity in Bangla Novels: A Reading of Debes Ray’s Tistaparer Brittanta
Subha Chakraborty Dasgupta

13. Kumaran Asan and the Poetics of Freedom
Vipin K. Kadavath

14. The Lives of Aithihyamala: Textuality, Region, History
B. S. Bini

15. Adaptation/Transformation: Locating Amar Chitra Katha’s Mahabharata within Indian Bhasha Narrative Traditions
Tonisha Guin

16. Quest for a New Discourse in Literary Criticism in Nineteenth Century: Interface between Gujarati and English, 1850-1890
Hiren Patel

17. Domestication of English, Education and Perpetuation of Sexual Difference: A Study of Govardhan Ram’s Leelavati Jeevanakala
Zarana Maheshwari

18. From the Poetics of Self-Knowledge to the Politics of Social Change: Sree Narayana Guru as a Social Reformer and Philosopher-Poet
E. V. Ramakrishnan

Notes on Contributors