Preti Taneja describes We That Are Young as a translation or transposition of Shakespeare’s King Lear into contemporary India. Her debut novel places the tragedy’s family struggle over inheritance and authority inside a powerful business family, giving her a way to examine patriarchy, corporate power and national history together.
What is We That Are Young?
It is Taneja’s debut novel and a contemporary Indian retelling of King Lear. In the publisher’s description, Devraj is the founder of India’s most important company; as he retires, he demands his daughters’ love in exchange for shares. The Folger Shakespeare Library’s book-club introduction describes him as a billionaire hotelier and political operator who sets his three daughters against one another.
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We That Are Young: A novel | $25.00 | Buy on Amazon |
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The Man Who Saw Everything | $47.91 | Buy on Amazon |
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Exercises in Control: Stories | $14.99 | Buy on Amazon |
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Lear’s Other Shadow: A Cultural History of Queen Lear | $33.20 | Buy on Amazon |
That shift from a kingdom to a company gives the old succession conflict a modern economic form. The family’s inheritance is not only a private matter: shares, leadership and authority are bound up with the reach of a major corporation.
Why did Taneja choose King Lear?
In a 2017 interview with Scroll, Taneja said she recognized a traditional Indian family structure in the relationships and dynamics of Shakespeare’s play. She pointed to a kingdom divided through women’s performances of family honour, and to the way authority and inheritance shape the family’s fate.
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She used that connection to explore the tension between feudal traditions and mercantile economics, as well as the relationship between former empires and newer forms of power shaped by capitalism and neocolonialism. These are Taneja’s interpretive aims, rather than a claim that the novel simply transplants Shakespeare’s plot unchanged.
How does the novel translate the play into contemporary India?
Taneja has rejected the idea that the book is simply a tribute to Shakespeare. In an interview published by The Ohio State University, she called it a “transposition or translation” of King Lear and connected its corporate setting to “corporate power” as an architecture of society. She said she was interested in how that power intersects with global capitalism, nation building and religious fundamentalism.
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The setting also lets the novel bring questions of gender and class into the family’s struggle for power. Taneja has discussed the connections between the play, Partition, gender and class in an interview with Bristol24/7. Read together, these author accounts frame the adaptation as an encounter between past and present, and between England and India—not as a one-to-one substitution of characters or places.
What motivated Taneja to write it?
In the Scroll interview, Taneja said the novel took seven years to write. She described her motivation in personal and political terms: “I wrote We That Are Young in a fury against gender violence, the rise of right wing nationalism, and a toxic masculinity not limited to India, and against fixed ideas of identity.” The statement records the author’s perspective and the concerns that drove her work.
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She also discussed the care involved in shaping the novel’s language. Taneja said the sentence “All will fall” took many drafts; she considered its sound and layered meanings, including inheritance, fate, the company’s collapse and death.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to understand the retelling
The most useful comparison with King Lear is not simply which character corresponds to which Shakespearean figure. Taneja’s interviews point instead to several connected questions:
- Setting and history: What changes when a family tragedy associated with a kingdom is situated in contemporary India?
- Inheritance and authority: How does the transfer of shares recast the play’s division of power?
- Gender and class: How do expectations placed on women and the structures surrounding wealth shape the family conflict?
- Language and form: What does it mean to translate the play’s form and concerns, rather than merely pay homage to its source?
These are interpretive routes grounded in Taneja’s own descriptions of the project. They do not amount to a ranking of adaptations or a claim that every reader will reach the same conclusions.
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Sources
- Scroll: Urvashi Bahuguna’s interview with Preti Taneja, 18 November 2017
- Penguin Random House India: We That Are Young
- The Ohio State University: interview transcript with Preti Taneja
- Folger Shakespeare Library: book-club introduction
- Bristol24/7: interview with Preti Taneja
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