Retrospectives can be made two ways. We can talk about specifics of what came and went, with or without impact, good or bad. Or we talk of emerging trends, the kind that came and are likely to come in next decade, given the emergence of the market as the final criterion of excellence. Over the past decade and more, we have heard of the novel at crosswords, and even of the death of the novel. Can any one deny there has not been a falling off in fiction by the turn of the century?
Specifically what did we get this year in fiction, or the much-hyped Indian writing in English? Some Naipaul, Saul Bellow, the South Africans, Nadine Gordimer, JM Coetzee