3 Review(s)

“…playwright, poet, actor, director, critic, translator and cultural administrator all rolled into one…Karnad is a renaissance man…. Karnad’s celebrity is based on decades of prolific and consistent output....”— India Today “...there have been a galaxy of litterateurs in Indian languages whose works can be classified as the world’s best and translated not only in English but other languages. Girish Karnad is one of them.” — The Tribune Girish Karnad: A Contemporary Playwright reveals Karnad’s contribution to contemporary Indian theatre which remains unparalleled in Indian theatre history. It brings out how Karnad has reshaped post-independence Indian theatre and has given it a new dimension. The book presents him as an avant-garde playwright who shocks the sensibility of the conventional readers by introducing the forbidden and sometimes even tabooed subjects. The plays based on myth, history and folklore throw light on his sense of tradition with both the Eliotian terms—the “pastness of the past” and the “presence of the past”. It discusses how the latest plays such as Wedding Album, Boiled Beans on Toast and Driven Snow (still unpublished) bring forth the awesome, horrible reality of the contemporary life which compels the audience/readers see/read them with unblinking eyes. An interesting feature of the book is that it comprises chapters that critically discuss the veteran dramatist’s plays till date.