Kankabati by Trailokyonath Mukhopadhyay [Hardcover]

Little Kankabati, only seven years old, is caught in a despairing situation. While her father, devoted to Mammon, would like to give her in marriage to a rich and old lecher, her brother is keen on having a licentious relationship with her. To escape from the clutches of both, Kankabati decides to sail down the river bordering her village to unknown lands. This journey up and down the river is a dream trip on which the narrative of fantasy is based. Like Alice, her Western counterpart, Kankabati meets strange creatures and beings in the course of this voyage. Part I of the novel, comprising 15 chapters, details the squalor and desperate sordidness of the village, Kusumghati, in 19th-century Bengal, from where Kankabati wants to escape. The second part, built on 19 chapters, describes another world, which is a realm of dream and fantasy.