Mother of 1084 [rare books]

MOTHER OF 1084

Mahasweta Devi

TRANSLATED BY SAMIK BANDYOPADHYAY

Written in 1973-74, this sensitive novel deals with the psychological and emo- tional 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 commit- ment, she begins to recognize her own alienation, as a woman and wife, from the complacent, hypocritical, bourgeois soci- ety her son had rebelled against.

One of Mahasweta Devi's most widely-read works in Bengal, this is an insightful exploration of the complex relationship between the personal and the political. It is also considered a signif- icant milestone in her literary career, a watershed novel both in terms of approach and content and in terms of language and style.