"This is a rich and various collection of essays. Terror and trauma, communalism and partition, violence and mercy: these are literary tropes, but they also represent brutal facts about the recent history of the subcontinent. Om Prakash Dwivedi has here brought together a number of significant voices, all of whom address the endlessly evolving beauteous, ornate, tragic tapestry which is contemporary 'India', a real India but one which is never separable from Indias of imagination and the mind." Prof. David Punter, University of Bristol"Om Prakash Dwivedi brings together a fine collection of essays by new as well as experienced scholars from different parts of the world. The essays variously examine literary and cultural narratives as these appear in novels and films (in English and the vernacular), and in communities of Sikhs, Parsis, Moslems, etc. The essays cover critiques of the ways in which terrorism is imagined and represented and, further, recognize that the problem is not gender neutral. Forays are also made into the diaspora, challenging the naiveté of nationalist narratives. What is more, the essays are well grounded in relevant theory and on the whole make an important contribution to South Asian Studies." Clara A. B. Joseph, University of Calgary