Shesh Prashna (Hindi)

About the Book

This is the story of Kamal--a bold, remarkable, and confident woman who never hesitates to be her own person. She travels on her own, finds work for herself, has liaisons with multiple men, and unabashedly expresses her unconventional opinions. Kamal goes about living life on her own terms, an act that is shocking to the people around her, given that she lives in a society where emancipation and freedom is not associated with women. Through the voice of Kamal, esteemed Bengali writer Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay has raised questions about the place of women in the Indian society. This novel is one of Chattopadhyay's last novels and is considered a masterpiece. Shesh Prashna was published in 1931 and is a remarkably bold novel for its time.

About the Author
Born on 15 September, 1876 in West Bengal, Saratchandra Chattopadhyay began writing in his early teens. The author of numerous Bengali novels, short stories, and even plays, his works have been translated in many languages across India. He achieved instant fame after his first novel Badi Didi was published in 1907 in Bharati. The quality and nuance of his writing made some readers conjecture that the author of this work was the celebrated Rabindranath Tagore writing under a pseudonym. This novel was then adapted into a TV series. Saratchandra Chattopadhyay has penned phenomenal works such as Charitraheen (1917), Srikant (1917), and Shesh Prashn (1931). His novels like Parineeta (1914) and Devdas (1917) have earned the status of classics in Bengali literature and found their way into popular culture when they were adapted into films. Some of his other notable works adapted into films, Manjhli Didi (1967) and Swami (1977), earned filmfare awards. Considered one of the most prolific writers of the early twentieth century, Saratchandra Chattopadhyay breathed his last on 16 January, 1938.