Sandip Roy w/ Chandan Reddy, CHAPAL RANI, THE LAST QUEEN OF BENGAL

Writer and podcaster Sandip Roy discusses his new book Chapal Rani, the Last Queen of Bengal: The Life and Times of a Female Impersonator, a moving portrait of gender and belonging, told in Chapal’s own voice. Roy is joined by Chandan Reddy, Associate Professor of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies and Comparative History of Ideas at UW.

Blending biography with evocative vignettes, Chapal Rani traces the career of Bengali stage actor Chapal Bhaduri and his struggle for artistic identity in a changing world.

As the last great female impersonator of Bengali theater, Chapal Bhaduri—known as Chapal Rani—once held audiences spellbound in the jatra tradition, where men became goddesses and heroines. But when women finally took their place on stage, Chapal found himself exiled from the world he had ruled. In this groundbreaking biography, Sandip Roy captures the rise and fall of a performer whose art was inseparable from his identity.

Told in Chapal’s own voice and interwoven with evocative fictional vignettes, Chapal Rani, the Last Queen of Bengal brings to life Kolkata’s golden age of theater and the resilience of a man who refused to disappear. Through decades of research and deeply personal interviews, Roy crafts a moving portrait of gender and belonging.

Sandip Roy is a Kolkata-based writer, columnist, and podcaster. He hosts The Sandip Roy Show (Indian Express) and is a columnist for Mint Lounge and The Hindu. His work has appeared in outlets including The New York Times, BBC, The San Francisco Chronicle, and NPR; he was for many years a commentator on NPR’s Morning Edition. He previously edited Trikone, the world’s oldest magazine on LGBTQ+ South Asian issues, and is the author of the novel Don’t Let Him Know.

Chandan Reddy is Associate Professor in the departments of the Comparative History of Ideas and the Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. His book, Freedom With Violence: Race, Sexuality and the U.S. State (2011) from Duke University Press won the Alan Bray Memorial award for Queer studies from the MLA as well as the Best Book in Cultural Studies from the Asian American Studies Association, both in 2013. He is co-editor (with Jodi Byrd, Alyosha Goldstein, and Jodi Melamed) of the special issue, “Economies of Dispossession: Indigeneity, Race, Capitalism,” Social Text (Spring 2018). His recent publications include, “Convergence, Dissymmetry, Duplicities: Enactments of Queer of Color Critique,” Cambridge Companion to Queer Studies, Siobhan Sommerville, ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020).

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