168 pp. summer 2010 (22:1), $20
ISBN 978-0-8248-3517-0
Project Muse
JSTOR

Series Editor Frank Stewart.
Translated by Alok Bhalla.

The summer issue features the verse play Andha Yug, written in Hindi by renowned novelist, poet, and playwright Dharamvir Bharati and translated into English by Alok Bhalla. The translation was originally published in hardcover by Oxford University Press, New Delhi, in 2005, and has been difficult to obtain in North America.

One of the most significant dramatic works of post-Independence India, the play takes place on the last day of the Great Mahabharata War. The once-beautiful city of Hastinapur is burning, the battlefield beyond the walls is piled with corpses, and the few survivors huddle together in grief and rage, blaming the destruction on their adversaries, divine capriciousness—anyone or anything except their own moral choices. Andha Yug explores our capacity for moral action, reconciliation, and goodness in times of atrocity and reveals what happens when individuals succumb to the cruelty and cynicism of a blind, dispirited age.

Hindi writer Dharamvir Bharati (1926–1997) was one of India’s best loved and most honored writers of the twentieth century. His novels Gunahon Ka Devata (The God of Sins) and Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda (The Seventh Horse of the Son) are classics of Hindi literature. A prolific writer of poems, essays, and plays, he was awarded the Maharashtra Gaurav, the Vyas Samman for Literature, and the Padma Shri for Literature and Education, India’s fourth-highest civilian honor.

Alok Bhalla has been Visiting Professor at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi; the Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad; and Hebrew University, Jerusalem. An eminent scholar and member of the executive council of the Sahitya Akademi (Indian Institute of Advanced Study), he has authored, edited, or translated more than twenty books, including works by prominent Pakistani and Indian authors.

Recently, Bhalla was interviewed by Jay Fidell, of ThinkTech Hawaii, for the series Asia in Review. Bhalla spoke on the topic of understanding politics through literature.