Arun Kolatkar and Literary Modernism in India Moving Lines

"A tremendous variety of influences have shaped Indian literary modernity, all of which can be understood through the poetry of Arun Kolatkar. In this first scholarly work of India's great modern poet, Laetitia Zecchini discusses the traditions, figures and events that inspired and defined Kolatkar specifically and Indian modernism in general. Zecchini uses unpublished manuscripts and diaries to follow the conflation of regional, pan-Indian and Western traditions on Kolatkar. She uncovers how poets of his generation became modern Indian writers while tracing a medieval lineage at the same time as they translated contemporary Western poetry. She considers how literary bilingualism allowed Kolatkar to blur the boundaries between 'original' Marathi poems and the English 'translation'; why he used his outsider position to privilege the minor and peripheral and how, like many modern Indian poets, Kolatkar used the present to revive the spirit of popular devotion. Steeped in World literature, European avant-garde poetry and American pop culture, Kolatkar makes for a fascinating subject to explore and explain the story of Indian literary modernity"--