Author: Rassundari Devi
Translator: Enakshi Chatterjee
Revision and Annotation: Ananda Lal
Pages: 122
Year of Publication: First published 1999 (English translation), Reprint 2016, Corrected edition 2020, Corrected and expanded 3rd edition 2022, Revised and annotated 4th edition 2026
Price: ₹500
ISBN:
978-81-995932-9-9 (9788199593299)
About the Book
A must-read for anyone interested in exploring the social, female and gender history of India through the lens of personal narratives, this is the complete, unabridged translation of Rassundari Dasi / Devi’s memoir from Bengali to English. It has in recent years been recognised as indispensable in the context of understanding the throughline of feminism and gender studies in the country. At 88, Rassundari writes about her life (she was born in 1810 and passed away in 1899) from her earliest memories as a child, focusing on the everyday, her thoughts, and the solace she gained from her faith in God. It is a fascinating account of a woman relying on her trust in the spiritual to survive the gruelling labour expected of her because of her gender and prevalent social norms that would now rightly be considered as extremely traumatic conditions.
Rassundari taught herself to read and write. She says: “It is such a pleasure to see the women today enjoying so much freedom. These days, parents of a single girl child take so much care to educate her. But we had to struggle so much just for that.”
As a tribute on the sesquicentenary of the book, we publish this new, full edition, thoroughly revised and annotated by our director, Professor Ananda Lal. It includes the original introductions by Jyotirindranath Tagore and Dinesh Chandra Sen and the afterword from our 2022 edition by Professor Sutanuka Ghosh (Department of English, Jadavpur University, Kolkata).
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