Billesur Bakariha

Billesur Bakariha is one of the most significant prose works of Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala', renowned Hindi poet. It is the story of the struggle of a poor Brahmin to move up in life in a society ridden with not only inter-caste conflicts but is also full of intra caste rivalries and jealousies.

Borrowing heavily from a small dialect of Hindi-Bainswadi, that happens to be the mother tongue of Nirala-Billesur Bakariha is replete with typical Nirala satire-rapier sharp and scathing. It is also full of local mythology and earthy colloquial metaphors.

All these make the task of the translator that much more challenging and difficult. Employing various strategies ranging from transliteration of some dense, culture bound expressions to elaborating others, Harish Narang has managed extremely competently to capture and communicate not only the various voices in which the author speaks but also the local dialectal flavor that is the hallmark of Nirala's novella Billesur Bakariha.

Harish Narang is a translator, writer and a scholar of literature and culture studies. A former professor and chairperson of Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Harish Narang has translated over twenty books ranging from Indian literary writings to African literatures. Among his well-known translations are Qatil ka Geet, Is Sadi ki Prem Kahani, Janata ka Aadmi and Azadi ka Indrajaal.

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