Indian English writers and their works- It’s important to praise the contribution of Indian writers in English literature. Here you will get a list of the best Indian English writers and their works. However, there are hundreds of Indian English authors available but Here I will give you the top 30+ Indian writers in English literature and their works.

It seems important to understand the origin and development of Indian writers in English. Here I will give you important (Exam point of view) Indian English writer’s name and their works for the upcoming competitive examination.

Let me tell you one thing, this post is helpful for those students who are preparing for Ph.D., MA Entrance, UGC NET, UPSC, or any teaching examination.

Top 30 Indian Writers in English Literature and Their Works

1. Mulk Raj Anand
2. Anita Desai
3. Kiran Desai
4. R.K Narayan
5. Raja Rao
6. Kamala Markendya
7. Khuswant Singh
8. Arundhati Roy
9. Amitav Ghosh
10. Toru Dutt
11. Kamala Das
12. A.K Ramanujan
13. Sri Aurobindo
14. Nissim Ezekiel
15. Keki Daruwalla
16. Vikram Seth
17. Mahesh Dattani
18. Girish Karnad
19. Badal Sarkar
20. Vijaya Tendulkar
21. Jayant Mahapatra
22. Mina Alexandar
23. Ruskin Bond
24. Jhumpa Lahiri
25. Michael Madhusudan Dutt
26. G.V Desani
27. Attia Hosain
28. Om Prakash Valmiki
29. Maheshsweta Devi
30. Sarojini Naidu

List of Famous Indian Writers in English

1- Anita Desai

• She was born on 24th June 1937 in Mussoorie. Her father was a Bengali and her mother was a German.
• She got her early education in Delhi
• She completed her graduation in English literature in 1957, at Delhi University. She was married to Ashwin Desai

Works

• She had written 10 novels and many short stories. She started writing prose at the age of 7. Here stories were published in children’s magazines. Here first story Circus Cat Alley Cot was published in 1957 in Thought.
• Her second story, How Gently’s The Mist was published in ‘The Illustrated Weekly of India’ in 1958.
• Her collection of stories for children The Peacock Garden Cat on a House Boat and Village by the sea.
• Circus Cat Alley Cot (1957) First Stories
• How Gentle The Mist (1958)
• The Peacock Garden
• Cat on a House Boat
• Village by the sea
• Cry the Peacock (1963) first novel
• Voices in the City (1965) Second Novel
• Bye Bye Black Bird (1975) Third Novel
• Where Shall We Go This Summer (1975)
• The fire in the Mountain
• Baumgartner’s Bombay
• In Custody

Desai always tries to show the psychological state of her characters because she thinks that the inner life of a man and woman decides his or her character rather than the external condition of life.

She uses symbols and images to describe the suffering of the mind. She was award with Sahitya Academy Award in 1978.

2- Vikram Seth

• Vikram Seth was born on 20th June 1952 in Calcutta.
• He went to London in 1957 and started his profession in the United Nation
• Vikram Seth is a polyglot has learned Welsh, German, French, English, Hindi, and Urdu
• Awarded With Commonwealth Poetry Prize (1985)
• Pravasi Bharatiya Samman-2005
• Padmashree in 2007
• First successful work was The Travel Book from Heaven Lake (1983)

Works

• The Golden Gate-1986
• An Equal Music-1999
• A Suitable Boy-1993
• A Suitable Girl-2013
• Mappings-1980
• The Traveller -2008
• Beastly Tales-1991
• The Frog and the -1Nightingale-1994
• The Humble Administrator’s Garden-1985
• All You Who Sleep Tonight- 1990

3- Nissim Ezekiel

• Nissim Ezekiel is an Indian English poet, He studied English at Wilson College, Bombay.
• He is married and has three children.
• He has worked as the editor of a number o journals including. The Quest, Illustrate Weekly of India.
• Award- Padma Shri (1988), Sahitya Academy Award (1983)

Works

• A time to change and other poems, London (1952)
• Sixty Poems, Bombay (1953)
• The Thrid, Bombay (1959)
• The Unfinished Man (1960)
• The Exact Name (1965)
• Hymns in Darkness and poster Prayers
• Nalini (Drama)
• The Sleepwalkers (Drama)
• Who Needs no Introduction?
• Marriage Poem
• Songs of Derivation

4- Khuswant Singh

• He was born on 2nd February 1915 in Pakistan
• He was given the Rockefeller Grant in 1966. He was elected a member of Rajya Sabha from 1980 to 1986
• He was awarded Padma Bhushan in 1974, Padma Vibhushan in 2007
• Sahitya Academy Award in 2010

Works

• Train to Pakistan in 1956
• I shall not Hear the Nightingale in 1956
• A Sangam City
• The Company of Women
• The Portrait of A Lady
• Sex, Scotch and Scholarship
• Celebrating the Best of Urdu Poetry
• Truth, Love, and A little of Malice.
• A History of the Sikhs
• The Sunset Club
• Sahibs who loved India
• Delhi A Novel
• The Free Thinker’s Prayer Book

5- R.K Narayan

• R.K Narayan is an eminent Indian English novelist. He was born in 1906 in Madras.
•  R stands for his village name- Rasipuram and K stand for the name of his father Krishnaswami Iyer.
• Most of the works based on the fictional town ‘Malgudi’.
• Sahitya Academy Award For The Guide
• M Days – Autobiography

Works

• Bachelor of Arts (Novel)
• The Dark Room (1938)
• Malgudi Days- Collection of Short Stories
• Cyclon and other stories
• The English Teacher (1945)
• Mr. Sampath (1945)
• Astrologer’s Day and other stories (1947)
• Financial Expert
• Waiting for the Mahatma (1955)
• The Lovely Road
• The Guide
• My Dateless Diary- An Autobiography
• The Man-Eater of Malgudi (1962)
• The Sweet Vendor
• A Horse and Two Goats
• The Painter of Sign

6- Mulk Raj Anand

• Mulk Ran Anand was born on 12th December 1905 in Peshwar. Hist first novel was Untouchable which was published in 1935
• He founded an art Magazine Marg. His Morning Face won Sahitya Academy Award in 1972.

Works

• Seven Sumers
• The Road
• The Big Heart
• Untouchable (1935)
• Coolie (1936)
• The Village (1939)
• The Sword and the Sickle (1942)
• The Old Woman and the Cow
• Two Leaves and a Bud (1937)
• Across the Black Waters
• The Private Life of an Indian Prince
• A Lamentation on the Death of a Master of Arts

7- Ruskin Bond

• Ruskin Bond is an award-winning Indian author of Britsh descent. His first short stories at the age of 16.
• Movies- The Blue Umbrella in 2007, (National Award), Khoon Maaf (Susanna’s Seven Husbands)
• Sahitya Academy Award in 1992 for Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra.
• He was awarded the Padma Shri in 199 and Padma Bhusan in 2014.

Works

• The Blue Umbrella
• Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra
• A Fight of Pigeons
• The Chery Tree
• A Golf Story
• White Mice
• A Prospect of Flower
• Garland of Memories
• frogs in the fountain
• Ghost Stories from the Raj
• Funny Side UP
• Rain in the Mountains: Notes from the Himalayas
• Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra
• Dust on the Mountains
• A Season of Ghosts
• Tigers Forever
• A Town Called Dehra
• At school with Ruskin Bond
• The Island of Trees
• The Night Train at Deoli and Other stories
• A Face in the Dark and Other Hauntings
• Potpourri
• The Adventures of Rusty
• Crazy times with Uncle Ken
• The Death Of Trees
• Tales and Legends from India
• Time stops at Shamli
• A Tiger In The House
• Four Feathers
• School Days
• Ranji’s Wonderful Bat
• The Tiger In The tunnel
• The Hidden Pool
• Mr. Oliver’s Diary
• The Parrot Who Wouldn’t Talk
• The Ruskin Bond Children’s Omnibus
• Rusty, the Boy from the Hills
• The Monkey Trouble
• Ruskin Bond’s Book of Nature
• Tigers For Dinner: Tall Tales By Jim Corbett’s Khansama
• The Rupa Book of Haunted Houses
• The Very Best of Ruskin Bond — The Writer on the Hill
• The Rupa Book of Eerie Stories
• The Rupa Book of Ruskin Bond’s Himalayan Tales
• The Penguin Book of Indian Ghost Stories
• The Penguin Book of Indian Railway Stories

8-Keki N Daruwalla

• Keki Nasserwanji Daruwalla was born in Lahore in January 1937, After taking his Master’s degree in English literature from Punjab University
• His first book of poems Under Orion was published in 1970, Apparition in April 1971
• Daruwalla is known for his bitter, satiric tone and violence.
• Sahitya Akademi Award and Commonwealth Poetry Award
• Padmashir in 2014

Works

• Under Orion 1970
• Winter Poems 1980
• The crossing of Rivers 1985
• Apparition in April 1971
• The Map Maker Poems 2022
• A House in Ranikhet 2003
• The Scarecrow and the Ghost 2004
• The Keeper of the Dead (Sahitya Akademy Award)1984
• Crossing the River

9- Kamala Das

• Kamala Suraiyya an internationally renowned poet, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, and novelist
• Editor of Mathrubhum, She began writing at the age of six.
• Pen Name Madhvikutty
• Kerala Sahitya Academy, Shortlisted for Nobel Prize in Literature, PEN Asian poetry Prize

Works

• Summer in Calcutta (1965)
• Alphabet of Lust (1976)
• My Story (1976) Autobiographical
• The Descendent
• The Sirens
• The Stranger Time
• A Doll for the child prostitute (1977)
• Padmavati the Harlot and other stories
• The Old Playhouse other poems

10- Rabindra Nath Tagore

• Born on 7th May 1861 at Jorasanko in Calcutta, His father Devendranath Tagore
• Rabindra Nath was influenced by Upanishads, Kalidas, Dante, and Shakespeare
• He wrote Banphul a narrative poem and Bhagna Haridaya
• Nobel Prize for Gitanjali- Mahatma Gandhi Called ‘Gurudev’
• He was the first Asian who received the Nobel Prize.
• He founded the Vishwabharati University in Bholpore, West Bengal.

Works

• Gitanjali
• Gora
• The Broken Nest
• The Home and the World
• The Genius of Valmiki
• The Sacrifice
• The Post Office
• The Home Comming
• The Kabuliwallah
• My Reminiscences (Autobiography)
• The Ascetic
• Malini
• Natri Puja
• Red Oleanders
• The Cycle of Spring
• The Fugitive
• Karna and Kunti
• Kacha and Devyani
• The Mother’s prayer
• The King and the Queen

11- Arundhati Roy 

• She was born on 24th November in 1961 in Bengal. Her Name is Suzanna Arundhati Roy.
• She worked as a Research Assistant at the National Institute of Urban Affairs.
• Her first novel ‘The God of Small Things’ was published in 1997
• It was awarded the Booker prize in London 1997,
• The Cost of Living was published in 1999

Works

• The God of Small Things (1997) Nobel Prize
• War is Peace
• The Algebra of Infinite Justice-2002
• The End of Imagination
• The Greater Common Good
• An Ordinary Persons Guide to Emperor
• War Talk-2003
• The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

12- Sarojini Naidu

• She was born on 13th February 1879 in Hyderabad. Her father was an Alchemy, Her mother was a lyricist
• In 192, she was elected the president of the Indian National Congress.
• She was called The Nightingale of India

Works

• The Lady of the Lake 1892
• Golden Threshold of 1905
• Innovation to India
• The Bird of Time -1912
• The Second Fluet-193
•  The Feathers of Dawn -1961
• The Temple
• Indian Weavers
• The Palanquin Berbers
• The Gift of India
• Bangle-seller
• The Anther of Love and Village Song

13- Raja Rao

• He was born on 19th November 1908 in Mysore
• His works are deeply metaphysics
• Awarded Neustadt International Prize For Literature
• Sahitya Akademi Award (1964)
• Padma Bhusan (1969)
• Padma Vibhusan (2007)

Works

• Kanthapura (1938) First Novel
• The Cow of Barricades (1947)
• The Serpent and the Rope (1960) Second Novel
• A Cat and Shakespeare
• On the Ganga Ghat
• Comrade Kirillov
• The Chessmaster and his more
• Changing India
• Tomorrow
• The Policeman and the Rose
• The Meaning of India