Paraja

By Gopinath Mohanty

Book Overview

Written originally in Oriya in 1945 and translated here for the first time, Paraja is a classic of modern Indian fiction. It tells on an epic scale the story of a tribal patriarch and his family in the mountainous jungles of Orissa. The slow decline in the fortunes of this family - from the quiet prosperity of a subsistence livelihood towards bondage to the local moneylender - is both poignantly individualized as well as symbolic of the erosion of a whole way of life within peasant communities.

The novel, furthermore, transcends what it documents because its characters are not merely primitive tribesmen ensnared by a predatory moneylender. Mohanty's protagonists are also quintessentially men and women waging heroic but futile war against a hostile universe. As the citation of the Jnanpith Award of 1974 put it - 'in Mohanty's hands the social is lifted to the level of the metaphysical.'

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195623916
• ISBN13: 9780195623918
• Release Date: September 1993
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.3" x 8.5"