In 1979, renowned Manipuri writer Binodini, won the Sahitya Akademi Award for her groundbreaking feminist novel ‘Boro Saheb Ongbi Sanatombi’, a work of historical fiction, based on the life of her rebellious aunt, Princess Sanatombi of Manipur. This has now been translated into English by Binodini’s son L Somi Roy with the title ‘The Princess and the Political Agent’.
This poignant novel, set in the midst of the British Raj, tells the love story of Sanatombi and Lt Col Henry St P Maxwell, the British representative in the subjugated Tibeto-Burman kingdom of Manipur. Binodini’s perspective is from the vanquished; and she tells the tale of the humbling of a small, but proud kingdom. The novel’s sorrows sparkle with wit and beauty, as it deftly dissects the build-up and the aftermath of the Anglo-Manipuri War of 1891.
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