The God of Small Things | Literary Precedents

The God of Small Things Literary Precedents

Salman Rushdie's book Midnight's Children is especially relevant to Roy's chosen subject matter, as his novel centers on a family during the Indian fight for independence. Similarly, Amitav Ghosh's novel Shadow Lines follows two families, one Indian, one English, over three generations from 1939 to the present day. Each of these novels investigates the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized and what happens as they separate. Bharati Mukherjee, in her novel The Tiger's Daughter, looks at the collision of Western culture and India in the present time, as she follows Indian born, American-educated Tara's return to India.

From the English side of things, covering an earlier time period, E. M. Forester's A Passage to India is one of the best-known works by an English writer that also takes on the theme of England's colonization of India.

Although Roy's fiction takes place at a later time...
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