Mother of 1084

Mahasweta Devi is widely acknowledged as one of India’s foremost writers. Her trenchant, powerful, satiric fiction has won her recognition in the form of the Sahitya Akademi 1979 and Jnanpith 1996 awards, amongst several other literary honours. She was also awarded the Padmasree in 1986, for her activist work amongst dispossessed tribal communities. This sensitive novel, written in 1973-74, deals with the psychological and emotional trauma of a mother who awakens one morning to the shattering news that her beloved son is lying dead in the police morgue, reduced to a mere numeral: corpse no. 1084. This awakening propels her on a journey of discovery, in the course of which, struggling to understand her Naxalite son’s revolutionary commitment, she begins to recognize her own alienation, as a woman and wife, from the complacent, hypocritical, bourgeois society her son had rebelled against. Mother of 1084, one of Mahasweta Devi’s most widely-read works in Bengal, is an insightful exploration of the complex relationship between the personal and the political. It is also considered a significant milestone in her literary career, a watershed novel both in terms of approach and content, and in terms of language and style.