Novel
Blue Mimosa
शिरीषको फूल
Parijat · 1965
Synopsis
Suyog Bir Singh, a middle-aged former Gurkha soldier who fought in Burma during the Second World War, lives alone and drinks. Through Shivaraj, his drinking companion, he meets the latter's sisters: the elder, Mujura, would be the sensible wife for him, but it is the younger, Sakambari, rebellious, atheist and a smoker, who attracts him. With her, he begins to judge his past differently, and the violence done to women during the war comes back to him as crimes, according to readers of the English translation.
Context
The novel was published by Sajha Prakashan and in 1965 won its author the Madan Prize, which no woman had received before her. The narrator is the former soldier himself, who speaks in the first person. Sondra Zeidenstein and Tanka Vilas Varya translated it into English under the title Blue Mimosa in 1972, and Corinne Atlan into French, under the title La Fleur bleue du jacaranda, at Stock in 1998. The Japanese filmmaker Toshiaki Ito made a film from it, and a troupe from Kirtipur brought it to the stage in 2022.
Who it is for
A short novel, told by its hero. It can be read in French in Corinne Atlan's translation, published in 1998.
Prizes and reception
Madan Prize 1965, the first awarded to a woman; Sahityapost reports that it is studied even in an American university.
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