Description
Battles of Our Own
Paperback
by Mohanty, Jagadish
- Publisher : Penguin Modern Classics (2022), 272 pages
- Language : English
- Paperback : 2022
- ISBN-10 : ?014345174X
- ISBN-13 : 9780143451747
- Weight : 0.272155422228227
- Dimensions : 19.81×1.52×12.9 cm
Battles of Our Own (Nija Nija Panipatha) by Jagadish Mohanty (1951-2013), was published in 1990. It is set in the coal mining area of western Odisha, where the author worked all his life. The conflict between the coal mine administration and the trade union in an industrial setting gives the novel its plot, characters and atmosphere. The conflict-ridden world of a colliery makes it an exemplar of the ‘industrial novel’ in Odia and perhaps in Indian literature. The setting of the novel makes it unique, setting it apart from the majority of mainstream Odia novels of the time, with their polite and placid settings and their themes of romance or social success.
Reviews
Average Rating:
3.8 rating based on 22 ratings (all editions)
ISBN-10: 014345174X
ISBN-13: 9780143451747
Goodreads: 60597744
Author(s):
Publisher:
Published: //
Jagadish Mohanty’s Battles of Our Own is a rare work of modern Odia and Indian fiction. It seeks to delineate a world that is off the grid. Its action unfolds in the remote and non-descript Tarbahar Colliery—a fictional name for the over hundred-year-old open-cast Himgiri Rampur coal mine in the hinterland of western Odisha. A work of gritty realism in its portrayal of a dark and dangerous underworld where coal is extracted, the novel poignantly reveals the primeval struggle between man and brute nature.
Offering a complete experience of the ‘industrial novel’—face offs between trade unions and management, trade union rivalry, and clandestine deals between enemy camps—this work brings alive Mohanty’s literary genius, which takes us to a world beyond the simplistic binary division between the worker and the master. The novel unravels a complex, fractious, and nuanced picture of the human condition.
This sensitive and evocative rendering by Himansu S. Mohapatra and Paul St-Pierre captures the thrill, beauty, horror and tragedy of this fictional tour de force.
3.8 rating based on 22 ratings (all editions)
ISBN-10: 014345174X
ISBN-13: 9780143451747
Goodreads: 60597744
Author(s):
Published: //
Jagadish Mohanty’s Battles of Our Own is a rare work of modern Odia and Indian fiction. It seeks to delineate a world that is off the grid. Its action unfolds in the remote and non-descript Tarbahar Colliery—a fictional name for the over hundred-year-old open-cast Himgiri Rampur coal mine in the hinterland of western Odisha. A work of gritty realism in its portrayal of a dark and dangerous underworld where coal is extracted, the novel poignantly reveals the primeval struggle between man and brute nature.
Offering a complete experience of the ‘industrial novel’—face offs between trade unions and management, trade union rivalry, and clandestine deals between enemy camps—this work brings alive Mohanty’s literary genius, which takes us to a world beyond the simplistic binary division between the worker and the master. The novel unravels a complex, fractious, and nuanced picture of the human condition.
This sensitive and evocative rendering by Himansu S. Mohapatra and Paul St-Pierre captures the thrill, beauty, horror and tragedy of this fictional tour de force.
