5/1/2023 0 Comments Subtle subversion![]() Debi’s feminism is extraordinarily subtle. Matchbox, and while the extent of the author’s palette remains out of the grasp of most non-Bengali readers, what is represented here contradicts, or at the very least complicates, her reputation as a non-feminist writer. ![]() Only 21 of the aforementioned 3,000 stories are collected in Lahiri writes at some length about the author’s critical reception, offering the observation “(A) complaint issued by critics is the author’s supposed conservatism, especially with regards to women’s lives.” This is surprising, especially if one skips the excerpt from Jhumpa Lahiri’s Master’s thesis that serves as the book’s introduction, and returns to it later. The author did not command respect, only recognition. Although widely read, her work was also largely derided for its tendency towards the domestic and the quotidian. ![]() She began to publish her work as a teenager, in 1936, and by the time of her death in 1995, had penned a staggering 242 novels and novellas, 62 books for children and over 3,000 short stories. ![]() In Debi’s case, that reputation is complicated. It’s a small homage both to the many sub-languages that we speak, write and think in, as well as to the oft-forgotten translator, whose burden it is to prove an author’s entire reputation to a foreign audience. The title page of this new volume of selected stories by Ashapurna Debi carries this evocative credit: “Translated into Bengali English by Prasenjit Gupta”. ![]()
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