Kanthapura
by Raja Rao
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At a glance:
- Author: Raja Rao
- First Published: 1938
- Type of Work: Folkloric realism
- Time of Work: c. 1931, just prior to Gandhi’s “salt march”
- Setting: Kanthapura, a typical village in the province of Kara, South India
- Characters: Achakka, Moorthy, Bhatta, Patel Range Gowda, Sastri, Bade Khan, Rangamma, Kamalamma, Ratna, Sankar
- Genres: Long fiction, Realism, Folklore, Novel
- Subjects: Culture, Tradition, Politics, Race, Social issues, Villages, 1930's, Violence, India or East Indian people, Caste systems, Yoga
- Locales: Asia, India
The Novel
Rather than being a traditional novel with a neat linear structure and compact plot, Kanthapura follows the oral tradition of Indian sthala-purana, or legendary history. As Raja Rao explains in his original foreword, there is no village in India, however mean, that has not a rich legendary history of its own, in which some famous figure of myth or history has made an appearance. In this way, the storyteller, who commemorates the past, keeps a native audience in touch with its lore and thereby allows the past to mingle with the present, the gods and heroes with...
(The entire page is 2000 words.)
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