The Book of Night

A Moment from the Mahabharata

Sibaji Bandyopadhyay

Translated by Ipsita Chanda

 

5.5 x 8 inches, xi + 122pp. 2008

ISBN : 9788170463368

Rs  395.00 (PB)
$14.95 (PB)
£9.99 (PB)

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Words his only prop, a diseased and disfigured interloper sets up stage. Caught unawares, his spectators stand witness to a strange outpouring. As he rambles on, his tone shifting from the flippant to the morbid, from elation to despondency, from arrogance to sentimentalizing, the listeners begin to realize that he is merely re-telling a very old tale.

 

The one-character one-act play The Book of Night: A Moment from the Mahabharata revolves around the re-turn of an irrepressible, and therefore, immortal anti-hero of Indian itihasa.

 

But who is this resentful intruder? And why is he sick with repentance even as he seeks to avenge the injustice done to him? 

Sibaji Bandyopadhyay (b. 1954) was formerly Professor of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University, Calcutta, and is currently Professor in Cultural Studies, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. His publications include Gopal-Rakhal Dwandasamas, Madhyarekha, Guhalipi, Prasanga: Jibanananda, ‘East’ Meeting ‘West’: A Note on the Colonial Chronotope. 

 

Ipsita Chanda (b. 1959) has translated works by Sukumar Ray, Satinath Bhaduri and Mahasweta Devi and her books include Packaging Freedom: Feminism and Popular Culture, Reception of the Received: European Romanticism, Tracing the Charit as Genre: An Exploration in Comparative Methodology. Chanda is Professor of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University, Calcutta.

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