Mother of 1084

Mahasweta Devi is one of India's foremost literary figures, a prolific and best-selling author in Bengali of short fiction and novels, and a deeply political social activist who has been working in marginalized communities for decades. *Mother of 1084* is one of Devi's most widely read works, written during the height of the Naxalite agitation-a militant communist uprising that was brutally repressed by the Indian government, leading to the widespread murder of young rebels across Bengal. This novel focuses on the trauma of a mother who awakens one morning to the shattering news that her son is lying dead in the police morgue, reduced to a mere numeral: Corpse No. 1084. Through her struggle to understand his revolutionary commitment as a Naxalite, she recognizes her own alienation-as a woman and a wife-from the complacent, hypocritical, and corrupt feudal society her son had so fiercely rebelled against.