Srikanta

Translated for the first time into English, Saratchandra's Srikanta was first published over seventy years ago and could perhaps be called the first modern Indian novel...
Srikanta, the narrator, is an aimless drifter, a passive spectator who cannot survive without the support of an individual stronger than himself. As a child, he idealizes the chaste Annada Didi—the epitome of selfless devotion to a worthless husband... As a young man he travels to Burma looking for new experiences and meets the rebellious Abhaya—who rejects her violent, bigamous husband to live openly with her lover—and learns to question the hypocritical social norms that bind a woman down but let a man off. He experiments with becoming a sanyasi, is bewitched for a while by the Vaishnavi, Kamal Lata, and wanders on till his directionless existence finally finds a focus—when he resigns himself to life with the notorious but stunning Pyari Baiji, breaking free of the social values he grew up with.

Through his dynamic and arresting characters, Saratchandra brings alive nineteenth-century Bengal, a prejudice-ridden society that needed to be radically changed. Srikanta set the precedent for socially conscious writing in modern Indian literature.


About the author
Saratchandra Chattopadhyay was born on 15 September 1876 in Devanandapur, a village in West Bengal. He grew up in dire poverty and received very little formal education. After spending some of his youth in Bhagalpur and Muzaffarpur, Saratchandra left for Burma in 1903, and it was from Burma that he began to send his stories and novels to magazines in Kolkata. Sensitive and daring, Saratchandra’s writings captivated the hearts and minds of readers, and he soon became Bengal’s most popular novelist. Saratchandra returned to Kolkata in 1916, and dedicated himself to writing. He was India’s first successful professional writer—a person who earned his entire livelihood only from writing. He died in 1938.

Saratchandra remains one of the best-loved Indian novelists of all time; his works have been translated into various languages and made into films as well. Among his best-known novels are Srikanta, Devdas, Palli Samaj, Parineeta, Charitraheen, Grihadaha and Pather Dabi.