About Vikram Seth's Two Lives

Essay from the year 2013 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Literature Works language: English abstract: migration and double migration a diasporic writer ischallenged and ruptured by the multiplicity of ambivalentaffiliations of language class race gender and sexuality. Thewriter often tends to deal with these affiliations as a mode ofpostcolonial grand narrative¹ exposing the theoretical clichésof marginalization and resistance. But a writer of a muchgreater sensibility transcends these issues and movestowards a global narrative of reconciliation and resolution. Amaster of every genre ─ whether it is poetry novels librettotravelogue or children book ─ Vikram Seth's Two Lives²exhibits refreshing change in the postcolonial narrativetechnique. A masterful fusion of biography memoryautobiography documentary history fiction and essay likeexcursions it resists theory biased theme of culturalresistance and gravitates towards a narrative of globalresolution. Deeply entrenched in the history of Second WorldWar it is a powerful reminder of the horrors and trauma ofthe War. Two Lives does not do quite what is expected of apostcolonial narrative or of an English novel in the traditionof Jane Austen (as Seth's magnum opus A Suitable Boy³ isconsidered).A cosmopolitan4 story narrated by a trulycosmopolitan writer It resists any branding of an Indianwriting in English.