Collected Plays by Luigi Pirandello
Th e troubled reign of a fourteenth-century sultan of Delhi helps dramatizethe crisis of secular nationhood in post-Independence India. A twelft hcentury
folktale about 'transposed heads' off ers a path-breaking model for
a quintessentially 'Indian' theatre in postcolonial times. The folktale about
a woman with a snake lover explores gender relations within marriage.
Individual human sexuality meets the historical debate on violence in Indian
culture. The plays in this volume span roughly the fi rst half of the career of
Girish Karnad, one of India's pre-eminent playwrights.
Th e three-volume set of Karnad's Collected Plays brings together English
versions of his important works. Each volume contains an extensive
introduction by theatre scholar Aparna Bhargava Dharwadker, Professor
of English and Interdisciplinary Th eatre Studies, University of Wisconsin,
Madison. Th e introductions trace the literary and theatrical evolution of
Karnad's work over six decades and position it in the larger context of
modern Indian drama. In addition, they comment on Karnad's place as author
and translator in a multilingual performance culture and the relation of his
playwriting to his work in the popular media.
Each of these volumes serves as a collector's item, making Karnad's works
accessible to theatre lovers worldwide
Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) was an Italian playwright, novelist, and poet. Born to a wealthy Sicilian family in the village of Cobh, Pirandello was raised in a household dedicated to the Garibaldian cause of Risorgimento. Educated at home as a child, he wrote his first tragedy at twelve before entering high school in Palermo, where he excelled in his studies and read the poets of nineteenth century Italy. After a tumultuous period at the University of Rome, Pirandello transferred to Bonn, where he immersed himself in the works of the German romantics. He began publishing his poems, plays, novels, and stories in earnest, appearing in some of Italy's leading literary magazines and having his works staged in Rome. Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921), an experimental absurdist drama, was viciously opposed by an outraged audience on its opening night, but has since been recognized as an essential text of Italian modernist literature. During this time, Pirandello was struggling to care for his wife Antonietta, whose deteriorating mental health forced him to place her in an asylum by 1919. In 1924, Pirandello joined the National Fascist Party, and was soon aided by Mussolini in becoming the owner and director of the Teatro d'Arte di Roma. Although his identity as a Fascist was always tenuous, he never outright abandoned the party. Despite this, he maintained the admiration of readers and critics worldwide, and was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize for Literature.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780714541105 |
| ISBN 10 | 0714541109 |
| Title | Collected Plays |
| Author | Luigi Pirandello |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Alma Books Ltd |
| Year published | 1987-07-01 |
| Number of pages | 236 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |