Author: Basavaraju N., Dr Nataraju G

Abstract: Shashi Tharoor occupies a distinctive position in contemporary Indian English literature through his innovative narrative techniques, intellectual engagement with history, and critical exploration of culture, politics, and identity. His fictional works challenge conventional literary forms by incorporating diverse postmodern elements, including intertextuality, historiographic metafiction, parody, satire, fragmentation, a plurality of perspectives, and the deconstruction of historical narratives. This article examines the manifestation of postmodernism in Tharoor's major fictional works, namely The Great Indian Novel (1989), Show Business (1992), Riot (2001), and selected stories from The Five-Dollar Smile and Other Stories (1990). Drawing upon the theoretical perspectives of Jean-François Lyotard, Linda Hutcheon, Jacques Derrida, Fredric Jameson, Jean Baudrillard, and Roland Barthes, the study analyses how Tharoor reconstructs myths, reinterprets history, and interrogates dominant political and cultural discourses through innovative literary strategies. The article argues that Tharoor employs postmodern aesthetics not merely as stylistic experimentation but as a critical instrument to expose the instability of historical truth, question nationalist grand narratives, and foreground the multiplicity of Indian identities in a postcolonial context. The study concludes that Tharoor's fiction exemplifies the convergence of postmodern literary techniques and postcolonial concerns, establishing him as one of the foremost practitioners of postmodern narrative in contemporary Indian literature.

Keywords: Shashi Tharoor, Postmodernism, Indian English Fiction, Historiographic Metafiction, Intertextuality, Satire, Parody, Fragmentation, Postcolonial Literature, Cultural Identity.

Article Info: Received: 28 May 2025; Received in revised form: 23 Jun 2025; Accepted: 25 Jun 2025; Available online: 30 Jun 2025

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.103.123