ANDHA YUG: THE AGE OF DARKNESS
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ANDHA YUG: THE AGE OF DARKNESS. By Dharamvir Bharati. Trans- lated with a critical introduction by Alok Bhalla. Manoa: Pacific Journal of Inter- national Writing 22, no. 1. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2010. 144 pp. Paper, $20.00.

The literary journal Manoa publishes English translations of important literary texts from Asia, the Pacific, and the Americas. Judging by the editorial stan- dards, quality of design, and excellent translation, accompanied by rigorously researched essays, this can be considered to be a collector's copy. The issue under review features the translation of an important text by Hindi writer Dharamvir Bharati (1926-1997), the canonical verse play Andha Yug: The Age of Darkness, translated by Alok Bhalla, which is a welcome addition to the journal's scope and can be recommended as compulsory reading for anyone interested in modern Indian playwriting. The play was written in 1953, shortly after the violent partition of the Indian subcontinent and after World War II, and the work retells a part of the epic Mahabharata, attributed to Vyasa and focusing on the last days of the battle between the warring factions of the two sets of cousins, the Kauravas and Pandavas. The play's protagonists are some of the most complex figures of the Mahabharata, who appear as ancillary figures in most renditions of the epic: Gandhari, the mother of the Kaurava princes, who blindfolds herself for life out of a sense of misplaced solidarity...