ABSTRACT
In the previous chapters, we considered some ways of approaching contemporary literature in a systematic fashion. Chapter 1 discussed academic strategies for analysing literature generally, and how the contemporary fits therein; while chapter 2 reckoned with specific strategies for describing what is contemporary in literature. Chapters 3 and 4 charted factors that determine the production and reception, respectively, of such literature. Although these observations are exemplified with references to texts deemed, broadly, of our time (say, as this is written in 2011), the emphasis has been on understanding the area of contemporary literature flexibly. In other words, I have tried to discuss what seems contemporary now with a sense of what has been regarded as contemporary in the recent past and of what may come to be contemporary in the future. I have also attempted to present observations so that they may be meaningful in different linguistic and cultural contexts (despite writing in English). To a large extent, then, the emphasis so far has been on coming to grips with the broad idea of the ‘contemporary’ in relation to literature, rather than with enumerating literary perspectives and issues that are contemporary in our time.
