The wonderland of 19th century Bengali fantasy

Another book attempts to bring the 19th century writer Trailokyanath Mukhopadhyay's fabulist, magical realist brilliance into English

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In 2013, in a book titled Of Ghosts and Other Perils, the critic and translator Arnab Bhattacharya brought a few stories by the Bengali writer Trailokyanath Mukhopadhyay into English.

Now, 10 years later, writer-journalist Sucheta Dasgupta does the same with Trailokyanath Mukhopadhyay: Tales of Early Magic Realism in Bengali.

Stumbling upon Bhattacharya's book a few years after its publishing was fascinating; it revealed there was more to non-realistic, speculative and fantasy fiction from late 19th century India than I had imagined. And subsequently learning of Mukhopadhyay's multifaceted talents-school teacher, police officer, museum curator, civil servant-in addition to his underrated importance in the Bengali literary canon, was a revelation.

This was a man whose epic fantasy from 1892, Kankabati-a fabulous Bengali retelling of Lewis Carroll's 1865 story Alice in Wonderland-caught Rabindranath Tagore's attention; but Mukhopadhyay was also, as Dasgupta writes in her new book, "played...down as a children's writer" by the Nobel Laureate "perhaps due to professional rivalry". Reasons to know more about Mukhopadhyay, and read as much of his work, were only stacking up. And Trailokyanath Mukhopadhyay: Tales of Early Magic Realism in Bengali, couldn't have come at a better time.

Dasgupta's curation of stories in her book is a clear strength. While the story Lullu also features in Bhattacharya's collection, the similarities between translators' efforts ends there. Dasgupta also includes in her book some "international" folktales that Mukhopadhyay seems to have heard and recorded through his extensive travels, including Rostam from Iran and one piece of non-fiction, titled The Alchemist, about the German Johann Bottger.