Bhattacharya, Bhabhani

Bhattacharya, Bhabhani (bəbä`nē bätəchär`yə), 1906–, Indian novelist, journalist, and translator. Bhattacharya was educated in India and England and has taught and traveled in many parts of the world. The themes of his novels, written in English, are drawn from the history and modern social problems of India. Sharp with social criticism, they deal with poverty and famine, caste and intolerance, and political inequality and injustice. His first work, So Many Hungers! (1948), describes in shocking terms a Bengal famine and the black-market corruption it produces. In Music for Mohini (1952) a modern city girl is forced by means of an arranged marriage into a repressive, traditional way of life. Bhattacharya attacks the caste system in He Who Rides a Tiger (1954), in which an untouchable masquerades successfully as a Brahmin priest. His other major works include the novels A Goddess Named Gold (1960) and Shadow from Ladakh (1966) and translations from the Bengali of some of Rabindranath Tagore's work. Bhattacharya's novels are internationally acclaimed for their irony and perceptive social commentary.