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Govinda Samanta: Or the History of a Bengal Raiyat (1874) is a novel by Lal Behari Dey. Inspired by a lifetime dedicated to serving the poor and oppressed, Lal Behari Dey wrote Govinda Samanta in order to portray the life of Bengali peasants in a positive, human light. Praised by Charles Darwin, awarded a substantial prize by a prominent Bengali zamindar, Lal Behari's novel is a masterpiece of Bengali literature. "It was considerably past midnight one morning in the sultry month of April, when a human figure was seen moving in a street of Kánchanpur, a village about six miles to the north-east of the town of Vardahamána, or Burdwán. There was no moon in the heavens, as she had already disappeared behind the trees on the western skirts of the village..." After introducing his novel with a brief warning to readers, Lal Behari opens his story with a beautiful description of village life in Bengal. In episodic fashion, he follows one "human figure" after another, each of them enriching his description of his native land. Centered on the raiyat boy Govinda, the story follows the journey from innocence to experience of a youth shaped by the stories and traditions of his village. Opposed to flowery language and romanticism, he hopes to tell "a plain and unvarnished tale of a plain peasant, living in this plain country of Bengal." Praised upon publication, Govinda Samanta: Or the History of a Bengal Raiyat is a compelling and understated narrative of working-class life from an author who dedicated his own life to serving the poor. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Lal Behari Dey's Govinda Samanta: Or the History of a Bengal Raiyat is a classic work of Bengali literature reimagined for modern readers.
Contemporary children’s literature in Bangla celebrates irreverent, defiant and deviant boys whose subversive doings critique the parenting and schooling they go through, while the girl child is neglected and marginalised. The rare fictional girls who show resilience and demand a normal childhood are consciously silenced, or contained and assimilated within unwritten masculinist norms. This book –a compilation of translated works of the author, critic and academic, Sibaji Bandyopadhyay –focuses on gender and childhood in Bengal. The book includes a translation of his Bangla Shishusahityer Chhoto Meyera (Little Girls in Bangla Children’s Literature), as well as a translated essay on Thakurma’ Jhuli (Grandma’s Sack), a collection of Bangla folk tales and fairytales from early twentieth century that underscores the subaltern role of adolescent female characters with hardly any agency or voice in the oral legends and folklore of Bengal. The translation of the piece ‘An Incredible Transition’ from Bandyopadhyay’s Abar Shishushiksha (On Children’s Education Again) applauds the role of Indian social reformers and British educationists in initiating women’s education in Bengal, while questioning the erasure of protagonists who are girls in the nineteenth-century primers. Interrogating gendered constructions in diverse genres of literature while revisiting the subject of female education, this book will be of interest to students of children’s literature, comparative literature, popular literature, gender studies, translation studies, culture studies and South Asian writings.
Annotation This volume surveys 200 years of Indian literature in English. Written by Indian scholars and critics, many of the 24 contributions examine the work of individual authors, such as Rabindranath Tagore, R.K. Narayan, and Salman Rushdie. Others consider a particular genre, such as post-independence poetry or drama. The volume is illustrated with b&w photographs of writers along with drawings and popular prints. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).
Focusing on 'filth' in literary & cultural materials from London, Paris & their colonial outposts in the 19th & early 20th centuries, the essays in this volume range over topics from the building of sewers to the fictional representation of labouring women as polluting.
A great deal can be learned about a given civilization through its literature. The living image of a people—acting and thinking, of themselves. and of the world as they see it—can only be apprehended by the creative productions of a nation's best minds. Thus students of Indian civilization and culture who cannot afford to overlook its literature will find in this book a way to approach the Indian spirit through the work of Indian authors. Fiction in India, particularly the novel, is a product of Western influences. As a literary form, the novel, with its emphasis on character analysis and related plot, is not native to the Indian temperament. Nevertheless, during the last fifty years, India has produced a wealth of fine fiction : novels and short stories, sketches and satires. In this book, Dorothy M. Spencer has selected and annotated some three hundred items for the ethnographical and cultural material they can be made to yield. English translations, works written directly in English, and translations from the various regional dialects have been included—on the whole a rather sweeping cross-section of Indian literary creativity. With the aid of Spencer's notes, the student can decide which of the works deal with specific attitudes and values that are of interest to him. The sociologist interested in institutions and interpersonal relations, in the beliefs and ideas regarding the Indian character held by the people themselves, the philosopher concerned with the Indian world-view, the anthropologist, and the political scientist will find an abundance of material in these pages to heighten his appreciation of Indian culture. The attitudes toward social institutions and fixed relationships, the family, the place of women as mothers and sisters, the caste-system—all the intricacies of a civilization's development can be revealed to the perceptive student. Naturally enough, fiction in India has also dealt with political and social themes. In this connection, autobiographies and propagandistic or moralistic novels are most useful. Both have been included in this bibliography, as well as historical novels, a genre which, though it has recently fallen into disfavor, is one of the most fruitful sources for an investigation of the Indian past. More than a comprehensive guide to Indian fiction and autobiography, this volume is also a fine introduction to Indian culture, suggesting and developing directions which a study of India may take. It will be helpful and important to all scholars in the humanities and social sciences who are concerned with understanding the people and way of life of an ancient land that has recently taken great strides into the modern era.
Reprint of the second (1939) edition of the work that is still the standard source-book of the Anglo-Indian language.