Behind Latticed Marble: Inner Worlds of Women by Jyotirmoyee Devi Sen, and translated from Bengali by Apala G. Egan
Behind Latticed Marble: Inner Worlds of Women was originally written in Bengali by Jyotirmoyee Devi Sen, and translated from Bengali by Apala G. Egan. This book will come under the short stories genre.
The title was so apt for the stories core presented in this book and also even the title itself creates us the curiosity to read this book. The cover image contains some classic and old vibes in it, which I absolutely love and it matches my taste buds.
I always love to read a book that is about East Indian, and West India-based stories, because as a South Indian, I feel like those books will provide me the information about their lifestyle, culture, and idea about their whole life in general, as I was not aware of the same. I got my hands on this book because this book was originally written in Bengali and the author of this book was born in the late 1890s, the stories are also about the life of women and girls of that time. There is one thing that made me surprised about this book, which is it was written in Bengali but all these stories are about the life of Rajasthan women and girls in the 1900s, isn't it intresting? Now let us discuss the content of this book in detail.
This is a short stories /anthology book that consists of ten stories in it. Each story is different and there are not interconnected to each other, but one common thing among all these stories speaks about the Rajasthan girls' and women's life in that period 1900. But most of the stories are based on the Royal families so we can find different women's life in these royal families such as courtesans, housekeepers, young widows, young brides, their harems, royal powers, etc.
All these stories reflect one thing clearly caste, discrimination, also a kind of patriarchy toward women. The story about the little girl Dapi was so heartwrenching that she was sold by her own father. Some stories are about child marriage and young widows these stories were so raw and gave me tears while reading because, till the end of their life, they reminded and ended the same either as servants or in the harems, etc. There was also some story that speaks about the power of male rulers. Though the author was born into a rich family the way she explains and also provides us with each small detail about normal people's life was so precise.
Now who can read this book? Everyone both fictional and non-fictional lovers or any genre lover can read this book. But the vocabulary and the language presented in this book were kind of moderately complex, so if you are an absolute beginner or even a beginner, you may struggle a little to read this book, and make sure you have the online dictionary handy. This is kind of a heavy read for me (for its content) though it is a small book.
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