1) Clarifying the syllabus phrase
This bullet has two parts:
- Texts (IWE): works originally written in English by Indian authors.
- Including English translations: important Indian texts that circulate through English translation and are often taught alongside IWE.
CUET can test both in the same paper:
- Identify which texts are originally in English vs translated into English.
- Recognise translation as a cultural and political act (not only linguistic).
2) IWE anchor texts (originally in English) and what CUET tests
Below are high-yield texts with exam hooks.
A) Foundational novels (pre-/early post-independence)
- Mulk Raj Anand, Untouchable
Hook: caste oppression; social realism; colonial modernity. - R.K. Narayan’s Malgudi novels (Swami and Friends, The Guide)
Hook: everyday life; irony; narrative simplicity masking complexity. - Raja Rao, Kanthapura
Hook: Gandhian movement; oral-storytelling texture; Indianised English.
B) Landmark post-1980s novels
- Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children
Hook: nation narration; hybridity; metafiction; Partition/post-Partition. - Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
Hook: caste, gender, family; nonlinear time; “Love Laws.” - Amitav Ghosh (The Shadow Lines, later works)
Hook: borders, memory, migration; history and narrative. - Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy
Hook: realist epic; post-independence social world.
C) Poetry and essays as “texts”
CUET sometimes includes poetry/essay questions:
- Nissim Ezekiel poems: Indian English idiom, urban satire.
- Kamala Das: confessional lyric; gender and desire.
- Essays/critical prose: can overlap with theory (identity, language).