Marwari literature from Bengal reflects a rich interplay of migration, dislocation and fluid identities. As a Kolkata Marwari, in Kusum Khemani’s fiction the schisms between ‘Bengali’ and ‘Marwari’ blur to reveal a delightfully plural, composite, and distinctively Indian ethos. Lavanyadevi, her award-winning 2013 novel, follows a traditional aristocratic Bengali family as it transitions into modernity, from British India to the present.
Spanning five generations of a zamindar family, Lavanyadevi is a story about women and their search for self, about shared laughter and friendships that endure across generations, beliefs and cultures—between mother and daughter, grandmother and granddaughter, and Marwari and Bengali women. Khemani’s women protagonists are strong, clear-sighted, both worldly and sublime, embodying a larger-than-life idealism while being grounded firmly in the everyday. Lavanyadevi—a compelling woman of perfection, extraordinary vision, qualities, and grace—remains real and credible because she is self-aware, self-critical, open to others, and to change.
Chronicling change in women’s lives over two centuries, Lavanyadevi is as valuable today for its questioning of majoritarian perspectives of caste, culture, sexuality, and faith, as for its advocacy of humanitarianism beyond borders. The strong bonds between grandmother and grandchildren, who continue Lavanyadevi’s legacy of universal humanism, rooted in Hindu philosophy, underscore that progress does not always mean breaking from the past. It is also a deeply political novel that contests colonialism and Western modernity, and advocates sustainable, indigenous approaches to life.
Winner of the PEN/Heim Translation Grant 2021, the jury called Lavanyadevi an ‘ambitious, far-reaching’ novel, lauding Khemani’s ‘energetic prose, deadpan sense of humor, and exquisite control’,
and Banibrata Mahanta’s translation that ‘stretches and manipulates language to produce a vivid text’ and a must-read for lovers of Indian literature.
The Author
Kusum Khemani, well-known writer, critic, translator and social activist, has a large and eclectic body of work to her credit. She is best known for her fiction, especially her four novels Lavanyadevi (2013), Jadiabai (2016), Gatha Rambhateri (2018), and Lalbatti ki Amritkanyayein (2019). Her short-story collections include Sach Kehti Kahaniyan (2012), and Anugoonj Zindagi Ki (2015). Her non-fiction includes a biography Ek Shakhs Kahani Sa (2009), Hindi Natak ke Paanch Dashak (2011), and Kahaniyan Sunati Yatrayein (2013). She has also translated well-known works of Bangla fiction into Hindi, including Shankar’s Jan Aranya (1975), Ashapurna Devi’s Chashma Paltey Jaye (2016), and short stories of Jyotirmoyee Devi (2007). Her stories and articles have been published in dailies and literary journals like Dharmayug, Dinman, Kadambini, Desh, Hans, and Navbharat Times, and she has been a popular guest in literary and cultural programmes on All India Radio and Doordarshan. For over four decades, Khemani has also been working with diverse social causes and institutions. Her last novel Lalbatti ki Amritkanyayein was born out of her experiences of working with sex-workers in Sonagachhi, Kolkata. President of the Bharatiya Bhasha Parishad, and editor of its Hindi journal Vagarth, she is currently overseeing the publication of the Parishad’s ten-volume Hindi Sahitya Gyankosh.
The Translator
Banibrata Mahanta is Professor of English at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. His recent works include English Studies in India: Contemporary and Evolving Paradigms (2019) co-edited with Rajesh Babu Sharma; and the forthcoming Evolving Perspectives in English Studies: Views from the Northeast and Beyond and Narrative Universes of Disability: Global Perspectives. His research interests include Indian writing in English, Indian nationalist thought, contemporary literary theory, disability studies and rights in India, and translation. He translates from Bangla, Hindi and Urdu into English. His translation of Kusum Khemani’s Lavanyadevi won the PEN/Heim (PEN America) Translation Fund Grant for 2021.
The Foreword
Amritjit Singh is Langston Hughes Professor Emeritus of English, Ohio University. His recent works include the co-edited volumes Feminism and Diaspora: Critical Perspectives on Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (2022), Revisiting India’s Partition: New Essays on Memory, Culture, and Politics (2016), and Interviews with Edward W. Said (2004). He has also translated the poems of Gurcharan Rampuri. His research interests include African American Studies, modernism, postcolonial fiction, South Asian literatures, and migration studies. He is currently working on a documentary history of South Asians in North America.
