কঙ্কাবতী - Konkaboti

Troilokyanath Mukhopadhyay

Genre: Classic

Language: Bengali

'Konkaboti' is a delightful read. This Bengali novel was published in 1907, 42 years ahead of 'The Kingdom of this World by Alejo Carpentier, which is considered to be the first-ever magical realist novel in history. 'Konkabati' contains a lot of elements of this genre, the blending of fantasy and reality, allegorical satire and dark humour intended at exposing the social evils of that time. Though critics may refuse to include this book in the magical realist category citing that the fantastical elements occurred during a dream, even then they cannot deny this as a predecessor to magical realism as we know it today.