Introduction Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable stands as a groundbreaking novel in Indian writing in English. It places Anand alongside R.K. Narayan and Raja Rao as one of the “big three” pioneers of the genre. Yet, unlike the gentle humour of Malgudi or the mythic scope of Kanthapura, Untouchable takes the novel form in a bold new direction. Anand compresses the entire narrative into a single day in the life of Bakha, a young sweeper in a North Indian town. The novel turns twenty-four hours into...