The achievement of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala as a literary artist is distinctive, yet limited at the same time; distinctive, because she has cultivated and demonstrated the qualities of a literary artist which are her own and emerge naturally from a social and cultural milieu peculiar to herself. But her distinction is modified and narrowed by the rather limited quality of her literary achievement, which is partly the inevitable result of her choice, and partly the artistic outcome of her creativity. This peculiar paradox of her attainment as an artist is, in a way, rooted in the environs of her literary effort, and is also co-extensive with the range and quality of her fiction.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala has been variously described as an 'inside-outsider' and an 'outside-insider'. These apparently contrary expressions are more meaningful than mere high-sounding literary labels since they impinge on her special personal and literary situation...