SCRIPT TO SCREEN : The Progressive Vision of K.A. ABBAS

Book excerpt: SCRIPT TO SCREEN The Progressive Vision of K.A. ABBAS Khwaja Ahmad Abbas is known as a journalist, film director, scriptwriter and novelist. A contemporary of Dr. Mulkraj Anand, he was also an ardent champion of the masses who chose such themes for his artistic creation that would further the formation of an egalitarian society. This book undertakes an in-depth study of his novels, films and journalistic writings to explore his progressive vision as reflected in these creations. The year 2013 is the centenary year of Indian Cinema while 2014 is the birth centenary year of Khwaja Ahmad Abbas. This book, therefore, attempts to foreground the contribution of K. A. Abbas who is an author of more than seventy books in English, a writer of the longest-running column of Indian journalism and a maker of such path-breaking films which may not have been box - office hits but were milestones of Indian cinema. The present book places Abbas in the perspective Vis-a-vis the realism canon and then attempts to disentangle the different strands that go to make up the whole, The inquiry is both factual and interpretive and it is hoped that it would do justice in directing our attention towards a great writer whom time has shrouded over.