Priyadarshi Ashoka
$45.51
- Paperback
170 pages
- Release Date
10 June 2026
Summary
Lala Nagendra Kumar Ray’s Odia play Kalinga Vijaya is a successful historical play. It is the recreation of the Kalinga War, one of the deadliest battles fought in ancient India. Ray has fashioned his play Kalinga Vijay as a tragi-comedy. He has introduced Shiladitya as the ruler of Kalinga since historically no ruler’s name is available. Ray has used Sanskritised vocabulary befitting the style of a history play. Since the chief characters belong to nobility, they use elite language. The minor characters use the folk idioms. The translator has tried to make the new English text, Priyadarshi Ashoka, as faithfully as possible without compromising the nuances of the original text.
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781645608646 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 1645608646 |
| Author: | Lala Nagendra Kumar Ray, Bhagabat Nath |
| Publisher: | Black Eagle Books |
| Imprint: | Black Eagle Books |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 170 |
| Release Date: | 10 June 2026 |
| Weight: | 204g |
| Dimensions: | 10mm x 140mm x 216mm |
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Lala Nagendra Kumar Ray
Lala Nagendra Kumar Ray (1898-1979) was an eminent Odia playwright, a talented theatre director, and a skillful actor. He was a prolific writer, authoring approximately 50 books on various subjects, including translations of fictional works by Nobel laureates.
Ray wrote four plays:
- Kalinga Vijaya (1927) - A history play based on the invasion of Utkal by Ashoka. It depicts the intrepidness of Odias and their love for their motherland, and is considered an accomplished dramatic work and a milestone in Odia dramatic tradition. It won the Kalahandi Prize in 1944.
- Shesa Swadhinata (1935) - A history play.
- Raghu Arakshita (1927) - A mythological play.
- Bhaktadhina (1935) - A mythological play.
His other notable books include Bibidha Ratnasamgraha, Swadhina Manaba, Bibaha Bijnana, and Kama Bijnana.
Ray also translated works from English playwright George Bernard Shaw (Plays Unpleasant), Swedish author Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf (Mrutyu Daka), Indian statesman Mino Masani (Our India), French existentialist authors Albert Camus (The Stranger and The Fall), Bertrand Russell (Other Satan in the Suburbs and Stories), and Ernest Hemingway (For Whom the Bell Tolls) into Odia.
For Ray, art was more than self-expression; it offered an escape into fantasy, providing respite from the stresses of life.
Bhagabat Nath is a retired Senior Reader in English. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from Utkal University, Odisha, and served in various Government colleges in Odisha, retiring in 2009 from Kuntala Kumari Sabat Women’s College, Balasore. Post-retirement, he served as the Principal of Innovation: The B-School, Bhubaneswar for five years and as a visiting faculty in English at Ravenshaw University, Cuttack for seven years. His academic interests include Indian Writing in English, Twentieth Century Literary Criticism, and Translation Studies. He is currently dedicated to translating Odia Historical Plays into English and English Short Stories into Odia.
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