Bengali Don Quixote Revived

The long lost Bengali translation of Spanish writer Cervante’s famous 16th century novel Adventures of Don Quixote de la Mancha has seen light of the day again.

Adbhut Digvijay (Strange Conquest), the 1887 Bengali translation of the Spanish text by Bipin Bihari Chacrabarty has been re-edited by S.P. Ganguly, a professor of Latin American studies at JNU. It was relaunched in the capital recently.

“The Spanish text is an absolute treasure-house and Bipin Bihari’s translation is equally captivating. I was drawn towards the book by it’s sheer magical narrative,” says Prof. Ganguly.

The Bengali translation tells the story of Kanti Ram, a Kshatriya (the Bengali Don Quixote), who decides to crusade against evil to deliver the world to light, with his family arms — a sword, a shield and a compass along with his friend, Golok Chand (Sancho Panza), a country rustic.

Prof. Ganguly says it had been a tough task to gather the lost prints of the more than 100 year old Bengali translation and believed the time had come to have a re-look at our ancient texts from a modern viewpoint.

Read the entire article here.

Image Source: M Kuhn