Girls for Sale

Kanyasulkam, a Play from Colonial India

Gurajada Apparao author Velcheru Narayana Rao author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Indiana University Press

Published:20th Jul '07

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Girls for Sale cover

A masterpiece of British Indian literature in a vibrant modern English translation

First staged in 1892, the South Indian play Girls for Sale (Kanyasulkam) is considered the greatest modern work of Telugu literature and the first major drama written in an Indian language that critiqued British colonialism’s effects on Indian society. Filled with humor, biting social commentary, parody, and masquerade, the plot revolves around a clever courtesan, a young widow, and a very old man who wants to buy as his wife a very young girl. Velcheru Narayana Rao has prepared the first idiomatic English translation, with notes and a critical essay. Itself a masterpiece of Indian literature in translation, this edition makes Apparao’s work available to new audiences.

"[A] scholarly event of the first importance.... This translation is a work of artand I predict that it will, on its own terms, become a classic." —David Shulman, Hebrew University

ISBN: 9780253219138

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

248 pages