First Promise

Spanning the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries, The First Promise tells the story of the struggles and efforts of women in nineteenth-century, colonial Bengal in a deceptively easy and conversational style. The charming eight-year old heroine, Satyabati, is a child bride who leaves her husband’s village for Calcutta, the capital of British India, where she is caught in the social dynamics of women’s education, social reform agendas, modern medicine and urban entertainment. As she makes her way through this complex maze, making sense of the rapidly changing world around her, Satyabati nurtures hopes and aspirations for her daughter. But the promises held out by modernity turn out to be empty, instigating Satyabati to break away from her inherited world and initiate a quest that takes her to the very heart of tradition.

Indira Chowdhury’s confident translation, with its conscious choice of Indian English equivalents over British and American colloquialisms, carries across the language divide the flavour of Ashapurna’s unique idiomatic style. This edition also includes the translator’s reflections on the process of translation itself.