Written originally in Oriya in 1945 and translated here for the first time, Paraja is a classic of modern Indian fiction. It tells on an epic scale the story of a tribal patriarch and his family in the mountainous jungles of Orissa. The slow decline in the fortunes of this family- from the quiet prosperity of a subsistence livelihood towards bondage to the local moneylender- is both poignantly individualized as well as symbolic of the erosion of a whole way of life within peasant communities.

Gopinath Mohanty, winner of the Jnanpith award, and the first winner of the National Sahitya Akademi Award in 1955 - for his novel, Amrutara Santana - was a prolific Odia writer of the mid-twentieth century.