Pratidwandi

Pratidwandi, meaning 'adversary', is the English translation of the Bengali original by Sunil Gangopadhyay. The story is about a family living in Calcutta during the 1960s-- the mother, two sons, the daughter, and an uncle, who moves in at the death of the father. Having lost their tea estates, they are undergoing a severe financial crisis. Siddhartha, the central character, was able to complete his graduation, because his sister ,Sutapa, was persuaded to take up a job but at the cost of her own education. Siddhartha wishes to become a doctor, but there is not enough money to fund his studies at medical college. Attempts at getting a job prove futile and his sense of frustration and obligation deepen. The apparent immutability of the situation leads to constant bickering and fights in the family. Sutapa, forced into the role of selfless breadwinner, is fed up and in trying to find an escape route brings dishonour to the family-- the final blow to their dignity. The bleakness of the narrative is relieved by a streak of romanticism and an idealistic vision of a world once inhabited by Siddhartha. Satyajit Ray made this story into a film, drawn by the compelling characterisation of Siddhartha.

Sunil Gangopadhyay is a highly successful writer of fiction, His latest forays also include the two-volume historical novel Purba Paschim. He is also a poet and in the 1970s edited a poetry magazine, Krittibas.

Enakshi Chatterji is a bilingual writer and has translated a wide spectrum of literature including Sat Patro, the Bengali translation of A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth.

Sand and Other Stories

This book is a translated collection of 3 novellas, spanning three decades of Ashokamitran’s work. The stories are about women trapped by an almost absolute lack of resources (financial, intellectual and emotional). The narrative in all three novellas moves in a series of short scenes, building tension with a relentless layering of detail. The exploitation of these women and their daily struggle against it is exposed in all its terrifying ordinariness. The stories have all the identifiable characteristics of Ashokamitran’s writing—irony, interiority, sensitivity.

Ashokamitran one of the most distinguished of contemporary Tamil writers. He received the Sahitya Akademi award in 1996. Translated by Kalyan Raman & Gomathi Narayanan.

Son of the Moment

In the charged atmosphere of the Mutiny (1857), an English officer, Noble Sahib, and a Muslim gentleman, Ibn-ul-Vaqt, are brought together under remarkable circumstances. Noble Sahib persuades Ibn-ul-Vaqt to remove the estrangement between the English and his community by adopting the English lifestyle and thus, draw his tradition-bound compatriots to a more progressive way of life. The consequences that follow are not what they had envisioned.

Nazir Ahmad is regarded as the pioneer of modern fiction in Urdu. This novel was written by Maulvi Nazir Ahmed in 1888. Translated by Mohammed Zakir.

Roots

Increasingly possessed by a yearning to escape the ennui of an indifferent marriage and the empty but comfortable lifestyle of a bureaucrat, Raghu decides to visit the small patch of ancestral property in his native village. The novel moves between the two worlds – the past and the present – with pungent, earthy humour and sharp insights.

Malayatoor Krishna Translated by V. Abdulla

The Enemy Within

This translation from the Bangla Antarghat is the story of a group of young friends who had committed themselves idealistically and politically to the Naxalite movement that rocked Bengal in the 1960s. Moving seamlessly from the past to the present, Basu’s narrative is compelling and breathless, as the novel’s edgy, nervous rhythms reconstruct and call up the turbulent history of a difficult period.

Bani Basu is a prolific writer her novels have been regularly published by Desh, the premier literary journal of Bengal. She was awarded the Tarashankar Award for Antarghaat. Translated by Jayanti Datta.

When The Kurinji Blooms

Translated from the Tamil Kurinjithen, Rajam Krishnan’s lyrical and erudite novel is a family saga of three generations of Badagas in the Nilgiris. As the winds of social change and modernity invade their protected lives, the innocence and harmony is replaced by conflict and tragedy that precede a new beginning.

Rajam Krishnan Translated by Uma Narayanan and Prema Seetharam.

The Great Feast

A bold expose of the contemporary Indian political scene that has cast aside morality and ethics and unfailingly betrays public trust for vested interests and private ends. The novel opens with the death of Bisesar – an unknown village youth – in itself an insignificant event. But with an important by-election around the corner, the feasting begins as opposing political parties like vultures seize upon the unfortunate event to extract political capital out of it, thereby providing sharp insights into the exercise of power and patronage.

Shock Therapy

Subodh Ghose’s stories are marked by a strong, vigorous narrative style and a lively universe of people and places drawn from the writer’s formidable range of life experiences. This collection of translations into English presents a number of his better-known stories.

Subodh Ghose was a senior editorial staff of the Bengali newspaper Ananda Bazar Patrika.

The Primal Land

The Primal Land is the story of the Bonda tribe inhabiting a mountainous portion of Orissa. The novel includes faint glimmers of political awakening among the semi-literate Bondas about their exploitation, even though the only incorruptible outsider who works for the betterment of the Bondas, a women schoolteacher, is suspended, there is hope for the Bondas yet.

Pratibha Ray has won a number of awards, including the Orissa Sahitya Akademi award in 1995 and the Jnanpith award for her novel Yajnaseni. Translated from the Oriya by B. K. Das and L. Das.

Anaro and Other Stories

This collection of Manjul Bhagat’s stories translated from Hindi by the author herself, deals with the experiences of women, children and men wrestling with life, not from positions of strength but nevertheless wrenching bits and pieces of their dreams. ‘Anaro’ winner of the Yashpal Award is the story of a bold woman authoritatively sketched in brave strokes, who keeps fighting to keep her dreams alive in the face of mounting debts.

Manjul Bhagat has published in Hindi, four collections of short stories and four novels. ‘Anaro’ a novelle in Hindi was awarded the Yashpal Award and Manjul Bhagat was honoured with the Hindi Academy Award.

Poovan Banana and Other Stories

This carefully selected collection of Vaikom Muhammad Basheer’s short stories are characterised by a variety in theme and tone. He has enshrined in them every kind of experience from the pangs of hunger and sex to the rapture of mystic vision. Its range includes stark realistic pictures of the material world as well as the realm of fantasy haunted by ghosts and spirits. Basheer has written on love and hate, on politicians and pickpockets, on the fancies of childhood and on the disillusionments of adult life with an intense sense of the tragedy of life and at the same time an irrepressible sense of humour.