History, Self-Alienation and A Study of Cultures: Studying Nirad C. Introduction Chaudhuri’s The Autobiography of an Unkno

Abstract

The literary creations of Nirad C. Chaudhuri have often rendered him to be an anti-Indian, pro-British individual and a writer as atavistic as was India during the nineteenth century when literary London often considered the writers from the colonies as ‘exotic outsiders, solitary figures and objects of curiosity’ (Ranasinha 68). These authors were considered to be able to communicate the intricacies of their native culture, embody newness, and possessed the entelechy to describe the colonies as well as the British from an exotic perspective. This essay studies Nirad C. Chaudhuri’s attempt to write history through an autobiographical mode in his The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian establishing his views and position detached from his countrymen, and thereby express his views regarding the West and the East from a self-detached point of view.