It is not often that in telling the simple story of an Oriya village girl’s journey from innocence to experience a novel manages to unlock the deep-lying sources of the malaise of the contemporary Oriya society. This is what kunti kuntala shakuntala, the first published novel be the acclaimed Oriya writer Binapani Mohanty, does with a certain aplomb. The novel gives an insight into the commodification that is a woman’s historical condition. It augments that critical vision by showing the complicity of the mythical icons of Indian womanhood such as Kunti,Draupadi and Shakuntala in that condition. One can in fact underline another aspect of the novel’s appeal, which is its echoing of the theme of Thomas Hardy’s Tess in the story of Kunti, pulled as she is between an Alec-like sensualist and an Angel-like romanticist.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR A K Mohanty
A.K. MOHANTY (Ph.D.) is former Principal, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela. He has over 32 years of teaching experience in metallurgy. His areas of interest include physical chemistry of metal extraction and process metallurgy. Dr. Mohanty has also published several papers in reputed national and international journals.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Binapani Mohanty
Binapani Mohanty (b. 1936) is an Oriya fiction writer of eminence who has two novels and twenty seven short story collections to her credit. Some of her stories have been translated into English, Hindi, Bengali, Malayalam, Kannad, Telugu, Urdu and Russian languages. She is the recipient of Orissa Sahitya akademi Award, Sahitya Akademi Award and Sahitya Bharati Award. Her address: Binapani Mohanty, glass Palace Lane, Badambadi, Cuttack 753012, Orissa.
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