The novel, Chha Mana Atha Guntha by Fakir Mohan Senapati heralds the inauguration of the age of modern Oriya prose. The novel, widely praised for its "realism", combines an ironic, reflexive, seemingly "postmodern" narrative style with the analytical spirit of a work of social inquiry, unearthing causes that lie beneath superficial phenomena. The importance of such foundationally original works as Chha Mana derives not only from their intrinsic literary merit but even more from their pioneering innovativeness, which can be fully appreciated only in the evolving historical context of that literature. Fakir Mohan Senapati himself stands at the source of one of the two broad lines of development of the early Indian novel, the realistic-satirical, just as Bankim Chandra Chatterji stood at the head of the other line, the historical-romantic.
