Novel
Blood-Red Sweat
लाल पसीना
Abhimanyu Unnuth · 1977
Synopsis
In the middle of the nineteenth century, after the abolition of slavery, thousands of Indian labourers, coming mostly from Bihar, are indentured on the cane plantations of Mauritius, where they suffer hunger, beatings and injustice. Kissan, the first of his family born on the island, and Kundan, a former soldier who escaped from prison, try to rally the field workers against the planters; the second part of the novel, some twenty years later, follows Madan, Kissan's son.
Context
First published as a serial in 1976 in the Indian review Sarika, then in volume form in 1977, the novel belongs to a trilogy on the cane workers. Kessen Budhoo and Isabelle Jarry translated it into French under the title Sueurs de sang, for Stock, in 2001, in the “La Cosmopolite” series, with a preface by J. M. G. Le Clézio; Rashi Rohatgi translated it into English in 2023. Nazir Ahmed Can studied in 2017 the violence of Mauritian history in it, from the plantation to the prison and the hospital.
Who it is for
For understanding the indenture of workers who came from India, told in Hindi by a writer who worked in the fields as a young man.
Prizes and reception
Véronique Schauinger judges it important for a little-known page of history, despite some longueurs.
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