Author: Indira Parthasarathy
Translator(s): K V Ramanathan
Publisher: Rupa
Year: 2005
Language: English
Pages: 207
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8129106191
Description
An Indian professor goes to Poland in the early Eighties during a critical time in that country: political turmoil prevails and-for the first time in the history of any socialist country-intellectuals and workers have joined together to revolt against the ruling political system.
Alternately narrated by the Professor in the first person as protagonist, and in the third person as the author, the novel, Comrades of Jesus is the story of Anna and Pyotr, a divorced Polish couple; of the burgeoning love between Naren, a young Indian diplomat, and Asha, who is of mixed parentage; of an Indian intellectual settled in Warsaw; and of an artist who only paints butterflies. It is the story of India and Poland, set in the historical background of the social and political contradictions in these two countries. The Poles are the Comrades of Jesus, waiting for His Second Coming and the Indians, for an avatar.
Dr Ranganathan Parthasarathy, popularly known as Indira Parthasarathy, is a renowned scholar, playwright, short-story writer and novelist. He has been honoured with the Sahitya Akademi Award, Bharathiya Basha Parishad Award and the Saraswati Samman. The Tamil original of Comrades of Jesus won the Rangammal award instituted by the late Kasturi Srinivasan.