Fire of Bengal

Fülszöveg

Fire of Bengal plunges us into the midst of life in Rabindranath Tagore's Santiniketan during the late 1920s. Rózsa Hajnóczy, wife of a Hungarian professor, kept a journal of her impressions during their three year stay at the ashram. After her death in 1942 this was published in Budapest and became one of the classics of modern Hungarian literature. For through Rózsa's clear yet compassionate eye we witness Tagore's "haven of peace" being torn apart by the tensions that were shaking the foundations of the Raj, by subversion and riot among students and staff, and by the ill-fated East-West marriage between Atanu Ray, a professor of English, and his European wife, Himjhuri. For these dramatic events Rózsa Hajnóczy provides a kaleidoscopic background of temples, palaces, harems and hovels, of mountain, jungle and plain, of princes and beggars, of holy men and revolutionaries. All this, and the portraits of Tagore, Gandhi, and the cosmopolitan characters on the campus, surely... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Fire of Bengal plunges us into the midst of life in Rabindranath Tagore's Santiniketan during the late 1920s. Rózsa Hajnóczy, wife of a Hungarian professor, kept a journal of her impressions during their three year stay at the ashram. After her death in 1942 this was published in Budapest and became one of the classics of modern Hungarian literature. For through Rózsa's clear yet compassionate eye we witness Tagore's "haven of peace" being torn apart by the tensions that were shaking the foundations of the Raj, by subversion and riot among students and staff, and by the ill-fated East-West marriage between Atanu Ray, a professor of English, and his European wife, Himjhuri. For these dramatic events Rózsa Hajnóczy provides a kaleidoscopic background of temples, palaces, harems and hovels, of mountain, jungle and plain, of princes and beggars, of holy men and revolutionaries. All this, and the portraits of Tagore, Gandhi, and the cosmopolitan characters on the campus, surely contains much that will be a revelation even to those who remember those times.
Éva Wimmer, the translator of Fire of Bengal into English, was born in Budapest in 1939. At the age of 17, during the Hungarian uprising of 1956, she escaped to London and earned her living as a shirtmaker. Meanwhile she taught herself English as a means of re-education. It was not until 1974 that she received from Budapest a copy of Bengali Tiiz (Fire of Bengal), which had previously been banned by the communist regime. She and her British husband, David Grant, resolved to translate it, and the work was eventually completed in 1985. Tragically, Éva Wimmer had died at the
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