Novel
Parineeta: The Betrothed
পরিণীতা
Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay · 1914
Synopsis
At the beginning of the twentieth century, in Calcutta, Lalita, a thirteen-year-old orphan, lives with her uncle Gurucharan, a man of principle whom the dowries of his five daughters have ruined and who has had to mortgage his house to his neighbour, the wealthy Nabin Roy. The two families live door to door; Lalita calls Nabin's wife mother, and the younger son, Shekhar, a young lawyer, teases her, instructs her and regards her as his own. When the two fathers fall out over the debt and Girin arrives, an amiable bachelor to whom Lalita is drawn, the two young people must come to understand what they feel.
Context
The novel appeared in 1914, during the author's Burmese years; it deals with dowries, the marriage of girls who are too young, and the conversion to Brahmoism of a ruined family. It has been translated into many Indian languages and adapted for the screen several times, in Bengali in 1942, then in Hindi by Bimal Roy in 1953, with Meena Kumari, an adaptation regarded as the most faithful, and in 2005.
Who it is for
A short novel of about a hundred pages, in very simple language. No French translation; only Devdas, by the same author, has appeared in French.
Prizes and reception
One of its author's most famous novels, constantly reissued and adapted for the cinema.
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