This sly and humorous novel by Fakir Mohan Senapati--one of the pioneering spirits of modern Indian literature and an early activist in the fight against the destruction of native Indian languages--is both a literary work and a historical document. A text that makes use--and deliberate misuse--of both British and Indian literary conventions, Six Acres and a Third provides a unique "view from below" of Indian village life under colonial rule. Set in Orissa in the 1830s, the novel focuses on a small plot of land, tracing the lives and fortunes of people who are affected by the way this...