The Parrot Green Saree

The Parrot Green Saree is the story of two women, two generations and two worlds moulded out of memory, expectations, and desires. Set primarily in the United States, this is also the story of displacement and loss, of a remembered homeland, of political and personal battles, of individual freedom. And it is about rebirth (in Bengali, the novel was titled Phoenix). The last novel of Dev Sen’s Naxal trilogy, The Parrot Green Saree explores the ethical and existential dilemmas of the urban, intellectual Indian, much like the two novels that precede it—I, Anupam and In a Foreign Land, By Chance. But it is unique in the way it looks at political issues through a turbulent mother-daughter relationship, bringing to Indian literature in Bengali, perhaps for the first time, a fascinating, highbrow, sexually daring, ‘unmotherly’ mother of a grown-up daughter. Can the brilliant, charming, and sexually adventurous Bipasha, an internationally renowned academic and poet, win back the love and confidence of Rohini, her alienated teenage daughter? And could the two women ever be friends?