The playwright and poet, Michael Madhusudan Datta is easily one of the most important and controversial literary figures of nineteenth-century South Asia—characterized by radical socio cultural transformation. Despite countless discussions by commentators and biographers he remains an enigma among the literary giants who straddled nineteenth-century Bengal. By demystifying Datta’s conversion to Christianity and by debunking myths of disinheritance, the alleged ‘desertion’ of his wife, misogyny, womanizing, alcoholism, and British sycophancy, Maligned Maverick re-examines the life and work of the pioneer of modern Bangla literature. This book delves into unexplored areas of his writings and quotes profusely from poems, plays, letters and articles, including Michael’s journalistic writings and his best-known controversial English prose piece The Anglo-Saxon and the Hindu, providing new insights into the mind of the maverick genius.

Analysis of the role of another towering personality of those times, the social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, also leads to some intriguing propositions. This book, the only biography available in English, discusses Michael’s varied encounters and the resultant range of reactions towards the British Empire. His aspirations in a colonial context and his disillusionment with it make for an interesting subject of investigation and in-depth study.