Bengal Nights

Author
Mircea Eliade

Original title
Maitreyi

Country
Romania

Language
Romanian

Genre(s)
Autobiographical Romance novel

Publication date
1933

Media type
Print (Hardback & Paperback)

ISBN
NA

Maitreyi (La Nuit Bengali, French; Bengal Nights, English) is a 1933 Romanian novel written by the author and philosopher Mircea Eliade.

It is a fictionalized account of the love story between Eliade, who was visiting India at the time, and the young Maitreyi Devi (protegée of the great Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, who became a famous writer herself). The novel was translated into Italian in 1945, German in 1948, and Spanish in 1952. Its most famous translation is the one in French, published as La Nuit Bengali in 1950.

For many years, Maitreyi Devi was not aware that the story had been published. After reading it, she wrote her own version of the relationship in 1974. Entitled Na Hanyate, it was originally published in Bengali. It was published in English as It Does Not Die.

In fulfillment of a promise Eliade made to Maitreyi that his novel would not be published in English during their lifetimes an English translation, of Mayitreyi, Bengal Nights did not appear until 1993. In 1994, the University of Chicago Press published the two works in English as companion volumes.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

La Nuit Bengali is a 1988 film based upon the French translation of the same name. It stars Hugh Grant (Alan), Soumitra Chatterjee (Narendra Sen), Shabana Azmi(Indira Sen), Supriya Pathak(Gayatri), Anne Brochet (Guertie) etc.

References

• The Untold Story behind the Publishing of Maitreyi Devi
• Passionate Fictions: Horizons of the Exotic and Colonial Self-Fashioning in Mircea Eliade’s Bengal Nights and Maitreyi Devi’s Na Hanyate
• Book reviews – JSTOR
• Lecture on the novel

External links

• Devi, Maitreyi It Does Not Die: A Romance
• Eliade, Mircea Bengal Nights: A Novel

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Categories: Autobiographical novels | Romanian novels | 1933 novels | Romance novels | 1930s novel stubs