Top Indian English novels

Twilight in Delhi, published in 1940, was one of the first novels to call for the freedom of India from British rule. It delves into history, bringing the past alive; it is a moving portrayal of the slow and steady decay of an entire culture and way of life. E.M. Forster praised the book as “new and fascinating…poetic and brutal, delightful and callous.” This classic novel is a fine depiction of a changing India following colonialism.

Balram was born in the rural village of Laxmangarh, where he lived with his grandmother, parents, brother and extended family. He is a smart child but is forced to leave school in order to help pay for his cousin-sister's dowry and begins to work in a teashop with his brother in Dhanbad. While working there he begins to learn about India's government and economy from the customers' conversations. Balram describes himself as a bad servant and decides to become a driver.,
The White Tiger is a novel that surprises the readers by its narrative strategies which goes beyond common story telling methods used by writers of fiction. It tries to find out the role of the have - nots in the world of unethical business and murky politics which are hand in hand with corruption and for exploitation of the downtrodden. The novel is a replica of contemporary Indian polity. The protagonist shares his thoughts with the Chinese premier in a letter. The story evolves through the letter which can compel the reader to complete it in one sitting. Aravind Adiga's debut novel, The White Tiger, received the Man Booker Prize in 2008.

The novel brought its author the 1960 Sahitya Akademi Award for English, by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters.
“The Guide” is the most well known novel of R K Narayan, who is the first major Indian English fiction writer with a considerable readers abroad. The Guide explores the truths behind the unexplained depths of human mind through the main characters. The novel portrays the transformation of the protagonist in different phases of his life and the role of fate in human life. R K Narayan creates a fictional world -Malgudi- where the story evolves and finally Raju, the protagonist, decides to sacrifice his life for the rural folks who consider him as a divine person.

The Hungry Tide tells a very contemporary story of adventure and unlikely love, identity and history, set in one of the most fascinating regions on the earth. Off the easternmost coast of India, in the Bay of Bengal, lies the immense labyrinth of tiny islands known as the Sundarbans. For settlers here, life is extremely precarious. Attacks by deadly tigers are common. Unrest and eviction are constant threats. Without warning, at any time, tidal floods rise and surge over the land, leaving devastation in their wake.

So Many Hungers! (1947), is one of the finest pieces of creative writing born out of the agonised torment of body and spirit endured by the sacred soil of Bengal during the hideous famine years and they early stages of the Second World War. The novelist shows the unfortunate predicament of Bengal by portraying the ups and downs in the life of two families- one of Samarendra Bose, an affluent barrister and businessman of Calcutta and the other of a peasant of Baruni, whose soul is given to song and wandering.

“The God of Small Things” is Arundhati Roy's celebrated novel which received The Man Booker Prize for fiction in 1997. The novel pictures the pathetic plight of “small things” in the world. Arundhathi Roy narrates the story of Ammu, whose life has many parallel with that of author's in many respects. The novel is a critique of untouchability, police administration, gender discrimination, and hypocritical moral code of society. The language and narrative style of the novel is much praised by both the readers and critics.

The novel is set against the backdrop of historical events like Swadeshi movement, Second World War, Partition of India and Communal riots of 1963-64 in Dhaka and Calcutta.

The novel brought its author the 1989 Sahitya Akademi Award for English, by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters

Chetan Bhagat is one of the most famous novelist of India today. All of his novels are best sellers. The author tries to reveal the great tragedy of contemporary India – corruption. REVOLUTION 2020 is a scathing attack to various manifestation of corruption in Indian society by which the common man are suffering and struggling to cope with. Though the plot of the novel revolves round triangular love affair, the attitude of the writer to the greatest evil of India make the novel an outstanding work.

The journey child protagonist from poverty and starvation to a prey of exploitation of various forms has been pictured in this novel. The novel depicts the universal conflict of haves and have-nots very objectively.

“Cry, The Peacock”, one of the most famous Indian novels, is written by Anita Desai. The novel's theme is the exploration of the mind of a very sensitive young woman. The neurotic female protagonist suffers from alienation and existential crisis. Anita Desai is very successful in delineation of characters and their mind through psychological realism and fantasy in this novel.

Chanakya's Chant (2010) is a novel written by Indian author Ashwin Sanghi.It reached #1 on India-Today's bestseller list on April 4, 2011. On June 19, 2011, UTV Software Communications announced that it had acquired the movie rights.haunted Brahmin youth vows revenge for the gruesome murder of his beloved father. Cold, calculating, cruel and armed with complete absence of accepted morals, he becomes the most powerful political strategist in Bharat and succeeds in uniting a ragged country against the invasion of the army of that demigod, Alexander the great. Pitting the weak edges of both forces against each other, he pulls off a wicked and astonishing victory and succeeds in installing Chandragupta on the throne of the mighty Mauryan empire. History knows him as the brilliant strategist Chanakya. Satisfied-and a little bored-by his success as a kingmaker through the simple summoning of his gifted mind, he recedes into the shadows to write Arthashastra, the science of wealth.