 Sunil Gangopadhyay won Sahitya Akademi Award for this novel in 1985.The story of the novel centers around the life of Kaliprasanna Singha along with legendary historical figures including Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, the reformer; Michael Madhusudan Dutt, the poet; the father and son duo of Dwarkanath Tagore and Debendranath Tagore; Harish Mukherjee, the journalist; Keshab Chandra Sen, the Brahmo Samaj radical; David Hare and John Bethune the English educationists, and others.The novel was translated into Gujarati by Uma Randeria as "Nava Yugnu Parodh" (2002).