This is the second in a trilogy of works by the famed Bengali novelist Bankimcandra Chatterji (1838-1894), and the second to be translated by Julius Lipner. The first, Anandamath, or The Sacred Brotherhood was published by OUP in 2005. Bankim Chatterji was perhaps the foremost novelist and intellectual mediating western ideas to India in the latter half of the 19th century. Debi Chaudhurani is a didactic work that champions a particular interpretation of Hindu dharma and wifely duties reflective of the late 19th-century Calcutta context in which it was written. But the story is also compelling. Written in a conversational style, it features surprising plot twists and ideas that are, even today, revolutionary in their daring. Most notably, Bankim makes a woman the embodiment of Lord Krishna's salvific message, as originally enunciated in the Bhagavad Gita. The protagonist, Debi, is a complex figure who is a rejected wife, becomes a bandit queen, represents a goddess figure, and symbolizes the land of India. There is a creative tension between her strength as a leader and her correct role, from the perspective of the author, as a domestic wife. Bankim also focuses on caste and what it means to be a genuine Brahmin, who is transformed by the author into a man who executes responsibilities instead of demanding privileges. Within the context of the teachings of the Gita, the author shares his vision of social activism to improve India. Lipner's idiomatic translation is enhanced by his detailed commentary on the original Bengali text and by a readable introduction that sets the novel and its ideas in context.

Winner of the A.K. Ramanujan Prize for Annotated Translation
This is a translation of a historically important Bengali novel. Published in 1882, Chatterji's Anandamath helped create the atmosphere and the symbolism for the nationalist movement leading to Indian independence in 1947. It contains the famous hymn Vande Mataram ("I revere the Mother"), which has become India's official National Song. Set in Bengal at the time of the famine of 1770, the novel reflects tensions and oppositions within Indian culture between Hindus and Muslims, ruler and ruled, indigenous people and foreign overlords, jungle and town, Aryan and non-Aryan, celibacy and sexuality. It is both a political and a religious work. By recreating the past of Bengal, Chatterji hoped to create a new present that involved a new interpretation of the past. Julius Lipner not only provides the first complete and satisfactory English translation of this important work, but supplies an extensive Introduction contextualizing the novel and its cultural and political history. Also included are notes offering the Bengali or Sanskrit terms for certain words, as well as explanatory notes for the specialized lay reader or scholar.

Winner of the A.K. Ramanujan Prize for Annotated Translation
This is a translation of a historically important Bengali novel. Published in 1882, Chatterji's Anandamath helped create the atmosphere and the symbolism for the nationalist movement leading to Indian independence in 1947. It contains the famous hymn Vande Mataram ("I revere the Mother"), which has become India's official National Song. Set in Bengal at the time of the famine of 1770, the novel reflects tensions and oppositions within Indian culture between Hindus and Muslims, ruler and ruled, indigenous people and foreign overlords, jungle and town, Aryan and non-Aryan, celibacy and sexuality. It is both a political and a religious work. By recreating the past of Bengal, Chatterji hoped to create a new present that involved a new interpretation of the past. Julius Lipner not only provides the first complete and satisfactory English translation of this important work, but supplies an extensive Introduction contextualizing the novel and its cultural and political history. Also included are notes offering the Bengali or Sanskrit terms for certain words, as well as explanatory notes for the specialized lay reader or scholar.