The book presents essays of literary critics on the development of Indian English poetry during the years after India's independence, the post-colonial or post-structural method in textuality and growth of Indian English short fiction. It takes up the works of Indian English writers including Sri Aurobindo, Raja Rao, Khushwant Singh, Anita Desai and Sudhir Kakar to analyse their response to themes relating to conflict, tradition and contemporaneity, violence and death. It studies the mind and art of Toru Dutt, realism in the works of Kamala Markandaya and yajna as the central metaphor in Girish Karnad's The Fire and the Rain.