Collected Plays by Mahesh Dattani

by Mahesh Dattani

Mahesh Dattani is India’s best-known playwright. He is a director, writer and dancer all rolled into one. Writing for the sheer pleasure of communicating with his audience, Dattani is the first Indian playwright writing in English to have won the Sahitya Akademi award. Moored in living social contexts, his plays address questions of sexual identity, religious faith, family ties and gender-issues that are of immense significance to contemporary urban India.Collected Volume II showcases Dattani’s talent as a writer and director and his wide thematic and stylistic range. The ten plays in this volume include 30 Days in September, performed extensively in India and abroad to commercial success and critical acclaim, the radio plays aired on BBC Radio and the screen plays of Mango Soufflé (winner of the Best Motion Picture Award at the Barcelona Film Festival), Dance Like a Man (winner of the Best Picture in English awarded by the National Panorama), and Morning Raga, premiered at the Cairo Film Festival and winner of the award for best artistic contribution, that established Dattani as the new voice of contemporary Indian cinema. With a general introduction by Jeremy Mortimer of BBC Radio and introductions to individual plays by actors like Lillete Dubey and Shabana Azmi, the plays in this collection provide fascinating insights into the human psyche and reveal just how caught up we are in the complications and contradictions of our values and assumptions.REVIEWSA playwright of world stature-Mario Relich, WasafiriMr Dattani is a canny and facile writer, Powerful and disturbing.-Stephen Bruckner, The New York TimesSince Salman Rushdie swung open the door to the West, English language Indian novelists have wowed the world. Indian playwrights have been less conspicuous except for Mahesh Dattani.-Vibhuti Patel, Newsweek International

Paperback

Published January 1, 1788

About the author

Mahesh Dattani is an Indian director, actor, playwright and writer. He wrote such plays as Final Solutions, Dance Like a Man, Bravely Fought the Queen, On a Muggy Night in Mumbai, Tara,Thirty Days in September and'The murder that never was', starring Dheiraj Kapoor. He is the first playwright in English to be awarded the Sahitya Akademi award. His plays have been directed by eminent directors like Arvind Gaur, Alyque Padamsee and Lillete Dubey. Dattani is also a film director. His debut film is Mango Souffle, adapted from one of his plays. He also wrote and directed the movie Morning Raaga.