cover image Arjun

Arjun

Sunil Gangopadhyaya. Penguin Books, $7.95 (208pp) ISBN 978-0-14-010341-0

Set some years after the partitioning of Pakistan from India, this Bengali novel by the author of Pratidwandi masterfully portrays the refugee experience and the attendant conflicts between Islam and Hinduism and industrialization and individual identity. Arjun, a young exile living in a refugee colony outside Calcutta, has worked hard to gain an education and rise above the poverty, oppression and racism that plagues the community. When the proprietor of a plywood factory conspires with a landowner to seize territory from the colony, the other refugees turn to Arjun for advice and leadership. The peace-loving Arjun must choose either to defend the dispossessed or abandon them for the better life his education has made available to him. Gangopadhyay's talent locates the universal in the events of a singular society. (June)