Multiple Choice Questions on American and Other Non-British Literature

1. Who is the author of Raj?

(a) Geeta Mehta
(b) Rama Mehta
(c) Shobha De
(d) Nargis Dalai
2. Dominique Lapierre wrote an appealing account of the
sordid squalor of an Indian city. Identify the city.
(a) Calcutta
(b) Bombay
(c) Udaipur
(d) Delhi
3. Who is the author of following poems?
"The Gift of India", "Bangle-seller",
"The Anthem of Love", "Palanquin Bearers"
(a) Kamala Das
(b) Sarojini Naidu
(c) Toru Dutt
(d) Nissim Ezekiel
4. Who wrote the hard-hitting poem "Sita
Speak" indicating the society for the injustice meted out to women
down the ages
(a) Bina Agarwal
(b) Kamala Das
(c) P. Lal
(d) Sarojini Naidu
5. In which of the following poems of Ezekiel do we get a
moving picture of a mother's suffering ?
(a) 'The Couple'
(b) 'Night of the Scorpion'
(c) 'The Visitor'
(d) 'Philosophy'
6. Who is the author of Two Virgins?
(a) Kamala Markandaya
(b) Kamala Das
(c) Anita Desai
(d) Shastri Deshpande
7. Name the Indo-English novelist who wrote A Suitable Boy.
(a) Vikram Seth
(b) Amitav Ghose
(c) Upamanyu Chatterjee
(d) Anita Desai
8. Two Indian writers living abroad created furor - one was
Vikram Seth who got an unprecedented amount as an
advance for his novel, the other who came under 'fatwa', for
one of his controversial novels, issued by Muslim countries,
was
(a) Amitav Ghose
(b) Bharati Mukherjee
(c) Anita Desai
(d) Salman Rushdie
9. Name Salman Rushdie's latest Novel.
(a) The Moor's Last Sigh
(b) Fury
(c) The Ground beneath Her Feet (d) Satanic Verses
10. Of the following novels one does not portray the
Gandhian Age and the impact of Gandhi. Which one?
(a) K.A. Abbas's Inquilab
(b) Venu Chitale's In Transit
(c) R.K. Narayan's The Dark Room
(d) K. Nagarajan's Chronicles of Kedaram
11. Who is the author of the following books: The Foreigner,
The Apprentice, The Last Labyrinth, The City and the River?
(a) Ruth P. Jhabvala
(b) Amitav Ghose
(c) Dom Moraes
(d) Arun Joshi
12. Whose collections of poems are these: A Time to Change,
Sixty Poems, The Third, The Unfinished Man?
(a) P. Lai
(b) Nissim Ezekiel
(c) Kamala Das
(d) Bina Aggarwal
13. Listed below are the works of Bhabani Bhattacharya of
which only one is his collection of short stories. Identify it.
(a) So Many Hungers
(b) A Dream in Hawaii
(c) Sea Hawk
(d) Shadow from Ladakh
14. Baumgartner's Bombay is a novel about a German Jew
who remains an outsider all his life, in his country because
he is a Jew and in India, where he is a firangi. Who wrote this
moving novel?
(a) Vikram Seth
(c) The Grotom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; textalign: -webkit-auto;"> (b) Anita Desai

(c) Nayantara Sehgal

(d) Ruth P. Jhabvala
15. In which novel does R.K. Narayan focus on family
planning?
(a) The Guide
(b) Mr. Sampath
(c) Bachelor of Arts
(d) The Painter of Signs
16. In the Guide we come across a dancer. What is her name?
(a) Daisy
(b) Bharati
(c) Rosie
(d) Savitri
17. Who wrote these lines?

"Woman is the earth, air, ether, sound; woman is the

microcosm of the mind "?
(a) Raja Rao
(b) R.K. Narayan
(c) Kamala Markandaya
(d) Kamala Das
18. Arthur Symons wrote about this person, "All the life of
the tiny figure seemed to concentrate itself in the eyes: they
turned towards beauty as the sunflower turns towards the
sun." Who is the person referred to?
(a) Toru Dutt
(b) Aru Dutt
(c) Sarojini Naidu
(d) Rabindra Nath Tagore
19. H.A.L. Fisher wrote about this person,".... this child of the
green valley of the Ganges has by sheer force of native genius
earned for herself the right to be enrolled in the great
fellowship of English poets." Who is the poet?
(a) Sarojini Naidu
(b) Toru Dutt
(c) Michael Madhusudan
(d) Manmohan Ghose
20. An Indo-English poet once remarked that his disciplines
(i.e., linguistics and anthropology) and his education give
him his "Outer" form, whereas his Indian origin, first thirty
years in India and knowledge of Kannada and Tamil give him
his "inner" form. Who said this?
(a) A.K. Ramanujan
(b) Kamala Das
(c) Gieve Patel
(d) Raja Gopal Parthasarathy
21. Who wrote Jejurithe Commonwealth Poetry Prize winner
work?
(a) Shiv K. Kumar
(b) Arun Kolatkar
(c) Keki N. Daruwala
(d) Jayant Mahapatra
22. In which of Anita Desai's novel an insane wife kills her
husband?
(a) Voices in The City
(b) In Custody
(c) Cry, The Peacock
(d) Baumgartner's Bombay
23. In which novel does the hero sing the refrain?
"This is the machine age, sons
This is the machine age
We are the men who will master it"?
(a) The Big Heart
(b) The Sword and The Sickle
(c) Two Leaves and a Bud
(d) The Road
24. Who was the first recipient of the Sahitya Academi Award
for English literature?
(a) Mulk Raj Anand
(b) Nayantara Sehgal
(c) R.K. Narayan
(d) Raja Rao
25. Following novels except one, describe the condition of
Westners living in India. Mark the one which does not.
(a) Heat and Dust
(b) The Princess
(c) Coffer Dam
(d) A Passage to India
26. Which of the following novels focuses on the question of
rape?
(a) The Bending Vine
(b) Voices in The City
(c) Some Inner Fury
(d) A Time to Be Happy
27. Who is the author of the following novels: A Bend in The
Ganges, The Princes, Distant Drums, Devil's Wind, A Combat
of Shadows?
(a) Mulk Raj Anand
(b) Bhabani Bhattacharya
(c) Manohar Malgaonkar
(d) Salman Rushdie
28. Who wrote "Our Casuarina Tree" a splendid Keatsian
poem?
(a) Toru Dutt
(b) Romesh Chander Dutt
(c) Swami Vivekanand
(d) Sri Aurobindo
29. To whom do we assign following works - The Lake of
Palms, A History of Civilization of Ancient India, The SlaveGirl of Agra?
(a) Manmohan Ghose
(b) Romesh Chander Dutt
(c) Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
(d) Sharat Chandra

Multiple Choice Questions on American and Other Non-British Literature

30. Which one of the following is a collection of Anita Desai's

short stories?
(a) Voices in the City
(b) Games at Twilight
(c) Village by the Sea
(d) Cry, the Peacock
31. Browning's The Ring and the Book is a long poem having
about 21,000 lines, but Aurobindo's Savitri is longer. How
many lines does the epic contain?
(a) 24,000
(b) 21,500
(c) 30,000
(d) 22,000
32. Toru Dutt, Romesh Chander Dutt and Aurobindo, all
wrote on one common theme taken out from the
Mahabharata. Identify the story which the tree found
irresistible.
(a) Kama and Kunti
(b) Nal-Damyanti
(c) Savitri
(d) Gandhari
33. Who of the following was highly influenced by French
Romanticism, French language and literature?
(a) Romesh Chander Dutt (b) Michael Madhusudan Dutt
(c) Toru Dutt
(d) Govind Dutt
34. About an Indian poet writing in English, a critic, George
Sampson says that a reader of his poems "Would readily take
them as the work of an English poet trained in the classical
tradition." An Indian critic feels that his poetry has no
imagery or sentiment that can be termed as Indian. Who was
this poet?
(a) Michael Madhusudan Dutt
(b) Romesh Chander Dutt
(c) Aurobindo Ghose
(d) Manmohan Ghose
35. The Fakir ofJhungheera was written by one of the first
Indo-Anglian poets. The poem is often hailed as a
"Competent narrative verse with Byronic echoes." Identify
the writer.
(a) Toru Dutt
(b) Henry Derozio
(c) Michael Madhusudan Dutt
(d) Hasan Ali
36. He was the first Indian poet to have published a regular
volume of English verse. He also edited an English Weekly
The Hindu Intelligence. Name him.
(a) Michael Madhusudan Dutt
(b) Mohan Lai
(c) Romesh Chander Dutt
(d) Kashiprasad Ghose
37. Paying a tribute to a Bengali poet who wrote in English
also, Sri Aurobindo said, "The God himself took up thy pen
and wrote." Who was he?
(a) Michael Madhusudan Dutt
(b) Henry Derozio
(c) Romesh Chander Dutt
(d) Kashiprasad Ghose
38. One of the following works is written by Michael
Madhusudan Dutt. Identify which one?
(a) The Shair and Other Poems
(b) The Captive Ladie
(c) Bianca
(d) Lays of Ancient India
39. Name the poet of "Kali, the Mother."
(a) Swami Vivekanand
(b) Subramaniam Bharathi
(c) Swami Ramakrishna Paramhans (d) Sri Aurobindo
40. He is a Sahitya Akademi Award Winner and he loves to
write for children. Who is he?
(a) R. K. Narayan
(b) Manohar Malgaonkar
(c) Ruskin Bond
(d) Upamanyu Chatterjee
41. Whose autobiography is entitled My Father's Son?
(a) Dom Moraes
(b) Frank Moraes
(c) Nirad Chaudhury
(d) VS. Naipaul
42. Mulk Raj Anand, about one of his female characters says,
"Gauri is my tribute to Indian womanhood." In which novel
does Gauri appear?
(a) The Road
(b) The Old Woman and The Cow
(c) Untouchable
(d) The Sword and The Sickle
43. Read the following passage and identify the novel and its
author: "Lago, I am as meek as Moses, but I have just heard
that you have been mishandled by that Bhatta Govinda. Whip
me, ye devils! Roast me in sulphur! Gall, worse than gall! A
rascally Yea-for-smooth knave! Three Judases, each one
thrice worse than Judas! Falstaff speaking. I am as subject to
heat as butter."
(a) In Custody by Anita Desai
(b) Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
(c) All About H. Hatter by G.V. Desani
(d) Vermillion Boat by Sudhir Ghosh
44. Name the author who has been described by a critic as an
"outsider inside."
(a) Anita Desai
(b) Salman Rushdie

(c) Nirad C. Chaudhary

(d) Ruth Jhabvala
45. Following novels, except one, describes the condition of
Indians settled abroad. Mark the one which does not.
(a) The Nowhere Man
(b) Bye-Bye, Blackbird
(c) The Serpent And The Rope
(d) The Guide
46. The Angel of Misfortune is a poem of about 5000 lines,
written by Nagesh Vishwanath Pai. Whose story is narrated
in this book?
(a) Saturn, the Dark Angel (b) King Arthur of the Holy Grail
(c) King Vikramaditya
(d) Kamadeva
47. Name the author of The Gardener, The Fugitive, Chitra,
Sacrifice, The Post Office.
(a) Rabindra Nath Tagore (b) Bankim Chandra
(c) Aurobindo Ghose
(d) Romesh Chander Dutt
48. Name the two prizes, one in literature and another in
History, awarded to young Aurobindo while studying in
England.
(a) Pulitzer Prizes in Literature and Bedford Prize in History
(b) Bookers in Literature and Butterworth in History
(c) Butterworth in Literature and Bedford in History
49. Name Sarojini Naidu's last collection of poems.
(a) The Broken Wing
(b) The Golden Threshold
(c) The Bird of Time
(d) The Temple
50. What is the full title of Aurobindo's Savitri?
(a) Savitri - An Epic
(b) Savitri
(c) Savitri - A Legend and a Symbol
(d) Savitri - A Poem in Three Parts
51. Who wrote Murugan, The Tiller and Kandan, the Patriot,
Jatadharan and The Next Rung?
(a) K.S. Venkataramani
(b) ShankerRam
(c) Humayun Kabir
(d) K. Subba Rao
52. The Devil's Wind depicts the events of our First War of
Independence (1857 mutiny). Who is the author of this
novel?
(a) Shanker Ram
(b) Manohar Malgaonkar
(c) R.K. Narayan
(d) Sasthi Brata
53. Which novel highlights the Bengal famine?
(a) So Many Hungers
(b) A Handful of Rice
(c) A Time to be Happy
(d) Athawar House
54. Who wrote Ilion?
(a) Virgil
(b) Aurobindo
(c) Homer
(d) Rabindra Nath Tagore
55. Who is the author of Love of Dust?
(a) Ruth P. Jhabvala
(b) Humayun Kabir
(c) Shanker Ram
(d) K.S. Venkataramani
Answers:
1.(a)

2.(a)

3.(b)

4.(a)

6.(a)

7. (a)

8. (d)

9.(b)

11.(d)

12. (b)

13. (c)

14. (b)

16.(c)

17. (a)

18. (c)

19. (b)

21. (b)

22. (c)

23.(a)

24.(c)

26(a)

27. (c)

28. (a)

29.(b)

31.(a)

32. (c)

33. (c)

34. (d)

36.(d)

37.(a)

38.(b)

39.(a)

41.(a)

42. (b)

43. (c)

44. (d)

46. (c)

47. (a)

48. (a)

49. (a)

51. (a)

52. (b)

53. (a)

54. (b)