FANTASY FICTIONS FROM BENGAL RENAISS. P

Fantasy Fictions from the Bengal Renaissance presents two masterpieces of Bengali literature by Rabindranath Tagore’s nephews Abanindranath Tagore and Gaganendranath Tagore. The Make-Believe Prince is the delightful story of a king his two wives a trickster monkey a witch and a helper from another world who is not a ‘fairy godmother’. Abanindranath deploys traditional children’s rhymes and paints exquisite word-pictures in his original rendering of a tale which has its roots in Bengali folktale materials in various genres. Toddy-Cat the Bold sees a group of brave comrades seek help from a young boy to rescue the son of their leader from the Two-Faced Rakshasa of the forest. Here a more numinous supernatural helper appears. Inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice books it presents a comic exciting and mysterious journey quite unlike Carroll’s with many traditional local touches and an unexpected ending.