Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay Livres

Pather Panchali deals with the life of the Roy family, consisting of Harihar, Sarbajaya, Apu and Durga, both in their ancestral village Nishchindipur in rural Bengal and later when they move to Varanasi in search of a better life, as well as the anguish and loss they face during their travels. It first appeared as a serial in a Calcutta periodical in 1928 and was published as a book the next year; it was the first published novel written by the author. It was followed in 1932 by a sequel Aparajito, which was later also adapted into a film of the same name by Satyajit Ray.

Set against the backdrop of early 20th-century Africa, the story follows Shankar, a young Bengali man driven by a thirst for adventure. His journey from a small village in Bengal to the wilds of Uganda and Salisbury is fraught with peril, including volcanic eruptions, treacherous caves, and man-eating lions. Each challenge tests his resolve and survival skills, creating a thrilling narrative filled with danger and excitement. As Shankar navigates this tumultuous landscape, readers are immersed in a captivating odyssey through some of Africa's most formidable terrains.

Restless Waters of the Ichhamati is a celebration of flora and fauna, particularly of the profusion of commonly found plant life that flourishes in most regions of Bengal. The gaze of a slow-moving attentive river-farer brings into view glimpses of vibrant plant life, traces of human habitation and changes of sky and water in the course of seasons. These are signs, evoking the flow of time in which generations unknown have lived and those unborn will live along the Ichhamati’s banks as it wends its way through Jessore district towards the Bay of Bengal. Born of this tension between the ephemeral and the forever, the novel’s own riverine course dispenses without chapter breaks—a writer’s decision that the translation follows. Introduction xxx pages, Text 370 pages

"Satyacharan is a young graduate in 1920s Calcutta, who, unable to find a job in the city, takes up the post of a ‘manager’ of a vast tract of forested land in neighboring Bihar. As he is increasingly enchanted and hypnotized by the exquisite beauty of nature, he is burdened with the painful task of clearing this land for cultivation. As ancient trees fall to the cultivator’s axe, indigenous tribes—to whom the forest had been home for millennia—lose their ancient way of life. The promise of ‘progress’ and ‘development’ brings in streams of landless laborers, impoverished schoolmasters and starving boys from around the region, and the narrator chronicles in visionary prose the tale of destruction and dispossession that is the universal saga of man’s struggle to bend nature to his will."--Page [4] of cover.