Filming Fiction: Tagore, Premchand, and Ray

This book addresses the mutual relationship between literature and film in the Indian context involving three iconic figures of Indian cultural life: Rabindranath Tagore, Premchand, and Satyajit Ray. Drawing upon the insights of leading academics and emerging scholars in the field, this volume presents an exclusive and highly specialized study of this complex process of mediation from printed words to images on the screen involving two legendary writers and a legendary filmmaker. Divided into three sections, the first section, ‘Fiction into Film: The Process and the Product’ addresses theoretical issues surrounding film adaptation of novels in the West and South Asia. After providing a range of perspectives on this theme, the next cluster of essays (‘Tagore, Ray, and Their Women’) focuses on Satyajit Ray’s adaptation of two Tagore novels in his films, Ghare Baire and Charulata (‘Noshto Nirh’), and three short stories ‘Postmaster’, ‘Monihara’, and ‘Samapti’ in his film Teen Kanya. The third section, ‘Premchand, Ray, and the Game of Chess’, deals with Ray’s adaptation of two Premchand stories in the feature film, Shatranj ke Khiladi and the TV film, Sadgati, respectively. The volume includes a detailed Introduction which provides the context to the various issues addressed in the book.