In Translation – Assamese
By Harekrishna Deka. Translated from the original Assamese by Navamalati Neog Chakraborty
In a similar vein, the text also serves to convey a merger of the canonical and kitsch: ‘My acquiescence to the belief of these innocent people in the hands of a divinity sending this book for their spiritual solace, got a rude jolt. What the priest believed to be a religious book was in fact a book of pornography!’ (p. 47; translator’s italics). By enacting such reversals, the novel emerges as a specimen of the postmodern critical enterprise that seeks to uncover the ways in which artefacts acquire cultural underpinnings.
Reviewed by: Ajitabh Hazarika