Mirror of the Darkest Night

It’s the mid-to-late 1800s and the British have banished Wajid Ali shah—the Nawab of Awadhi in Lucknow Calcutta. To the sound of the soulful melody of the sarangi, the mercurial courtesan laayl-e br>aasman is playing a dangerous game of love, loyalty, deception and betrayal. Bajrangi and kundan, bound by their love for each other and for laayl-e, struggle to keep their balance. Ranging across generations and Geography, The scale of laayl-e’s story sweeps the devil, a crime Lord and many other remarkable characters into a heady mix. Mirror of the darkest night is almost an aberration in Mahasweta Devi’s oeuvre. Known for her activism and hard-hitting indictment of social inequalities, she pays close attention to detail in this sparkling novel. It offers a rare glimpse of Devi’s talent for telling the sort of story she normally eschewed—and it’s a Cracker of a tale.