Collected Plays in Translation

' Here are the collected plays of India's finest living playwright. It's a rare thing for plays to be such powerful reading, but this collection leaves one speechless, exhausted, and angry. Angry that we, the Indian middle class, are the way we are, with our hypocrisies, pettiness and hunger for power Collected Plays is an intense, intelligent experience, and a precious addition to every bookshelf of contemporary Indian writing.'---Sunday Mid-Day

'The volume is a collector's item that brings one of Marathi literature's most brilliant minds to a pan-Indian and global audience.'-The Times of India

'[Tendulkar] remains the foremost chronicler as well as critic of his times This commendable volume offers more superior fare than any original writing in contemporary Indian English.'-Business Standard

'Tendulkar is that rare dramatist who successfully brings together social criticism and entertainment. This collection will please all [those] who have loved and enjoyed Tendulkara's plays on stage.'-The Telegraph

'Tendulkar can be called a complete playwright, in the tradition of Shakespeare He holds up a heightened reflection of society without offering any pat resolutions It is pleasure to find his most enduring plays in a single collection the real treat [lies] in the accompanying essays These are all valuable additions to the plays.'-Deccan Herald

'Vijay Tendulkar [is] perhaps India's most brilliant playwright.'-The Statesman

About the Book:

Vijay Tendulkar, one of India's best-known playwrights, has more than 50 publications to his credit, and has received such prestigious awards such as the Padma Bhusahan, the Vishnudaas Bhave Memorial Award and the Katha Chaudamani Award.

The plays in this collection deal with the complexity of human relationships. Each contains a subtle critique of modern Indian society, and a distinct character and message.

Kamala is an indictment of the success-oriented male society in which women are mere stepping stones for the achievements of men. Silence! The Court is in Session combines social criticism with the tragedy of an individual victimized by society. Sakharam Binder explores the complications of human nature, two necessary components of which are sex and violence. The Vultures depicts the economic and moral degeneration of a family.

Encounter in Umbugland is political satire and Ghashiram Kotwal, set in Maharashtra in the later eighteenth century recounts the power game played out in terms of caste ascendancy in politics. A Friend's Story is stark commentary on the nature of both heterosexual love. Kanyadaan explores. The texture of modernity and social change in India through a marriage between two people of different castes and background.

A compilation of eight plays, this volume is a collector's item which will make Tendulkar's works easily accessible to students and aficionados of modern Indian theatre.