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Informationen zum Autor Bratya Basu , is an Indian actor, stage director, playwright, film director, professor and a politician. Basu was West Bengal's minister for Education. As an acclaimed writer, he began his theatre career in 1996 with his first play Ashaleen and went on to write Aranyadeb, Shahar Yaar, Virus-M, Winkle-Twinkle , Ruddhasangeet, Chatushkon , and the internationally celebrated Hemlat - the Prince of Garanhata. He has also been awarded Gajendra Kumar Mitra-Sumathanath Ghosh Memorial Award 2018 for his contribution in Bengali Literature. Klappentext This anthology of six selected plays, written between 2000 and 2020 by Bratya Basu, winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award 2021, is the first collection of Bengali plays that blends avant-garde, pop and traditional cultures with contemporary dramatic themes. The six plays, freshly translated into English, each bring a uniquely Bengali and Indian perspective to the intermingling of past and present, global and local, and magical and real in a postmodern pastiche about India today. The collection is divided into three thematic sections: 1) 'Poignant Challenges, Soulful Remorse' examines power in Indian politics, religion, and family. 2) '(In)visible Boundaries, (Un)democratic Choices' explores the relationship among democracy, nation building, and the role of women in intergenerational political struggle. 3) 'Intimately Political, Politically Intimate' navigates queer identity, mental health and the fabulation of modern Bengali life in a 21st-century India straddling the progressive politics that removed section 377 and Hindu nationalisms that stoke new conservatisms. Vorwort The first collection of contemporary Bengali plays that blends avant-garde, pop, and traditional genres in which Indian culture, Indian history, and the supernatural collide to explode India’s stereotypes at home and in diaspora. Zusammenfassung This anthology of six selected plays, written between 2000 and 2020 by Bratya Basu, winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award 2021, is the first collection of Bengali plays that blends avant-garde, pop and traditional cultures with contemporary dramatic themes. The six plays, freshly translated into English, each bring a uniquely Bengali and Indian perspective to the intermingling of past and present, global and local, and magical and real in a postmodern pastiche about India today. The collection is divided into three thematic sections: 1) ‘Poignant Challenges, Soulful Remorse’ examines power in Indian politics, religion, and family. 2) ‘(In)visible Boundaries, (Un)democratic Choices’ explores the relationship among democracy, nation building, and the role of women in intergenerational political struggle. 3) ‘Intimately Political, Politically Intimate’ navigates queer identity, mental health and the fabulation of modern Bengali life in a 21st-century India straddling the progressive politics that removed section 377 and Hindu nationalisms that stoke new conservatisms. Inhaltsverzeichnis Preface INTRODUCTION Section 1: Poignant Challenges, Soulful Remorse - Love in the Times of Corona imagines a Kolkata overtaken by pandemic and wild animals as families, governments, and media fall apart. Penitence takes the audience back to Gautam Buddha's Mahaparinirvana to examine the relationship between religion, violence, and ethics in its historical contexts with contemporary relevance. 1. Love in Times of Corona 2. The Penitence Section 2: (In)visible Boundaries, (Un)democratic Choices - The Final Night re-imagines the Indian nationalist Muhammed Ali Jinnah's final night in British India set within the tumultuous events of partition. The play revolves around emotional wounds between him and his daughter in the larger ethico-political imagination of leaving the injured nation to the ne...
