28/10/2025
INVITATION: The LCIS/CERES Lecture by Thirthankar Chakraborty titled '“A Wandering to Find Home”: Samuel Beckett and the Post-Independence Indian Novel' will take place on the 10th of December between 16:30 and18:00 in LETT 01.52, Erasmushuis, Blijde-Inkomststraat 21, 3000 Leuven.
This lecture will examine how Samuel Beckett’s preoccupation with “a wandering to find home”, as articulated in Murphy (1938), resonates with the post-Independence Indian novel’s engagement with displacement and belonging. Set against the backdrop of Partition and the emergence of new diasporic identities, works by Raja Rao, G.V. Desani, and Salman Rushdie will be analysed to reveal a multidirectional dialogue with Beckett’s portrayal of a spiritual homelessness and alienation. Rather than tracing a direct line of literary influence, the lecture will aim to identify a shared territory shaped by unreliable narration, verbal exhaustion, and the aesthetic use of silence, demonstrating a persistent and inventive search for home in worlds transformed by uncertainty and loss.
