Mahasweta Devi (1926–2016) was one of India’s foremost literary figures from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries—a writer and social activist in equal right. Arunava Sinha is a prize-winning translator of classic, modern, and contemporary Bengali literature from India and Bangladesh. He is an associate professor of practice in the Creative Writing Department at Ashoka University, India, codirector of the Ashoka Centre for Translation, and the books editor of the online politics and culture magazine Scroll.in.

“This tale of familial bonds, societal unrest, and power obtained both legitimately and via violence is told tersely, often through rapid-fire dialogue. At times, the politically charged 1970s setting and focus on underworld activities parallels David Peace’s work. And the staccato rhythms of violence evoked by Devi’s prose in Sinha’s translation are often haunting.”