Emilio Salgari and the tiger, a story written in distant Italy, set in Guwahati in 1870

This project is the result of research undertaken during the Guwahati Research Program, Assam (IND) in 2013, 2015 and 2016. Emilio Salgari (Verona 1862 - Torino 1911) was a popular Italian writer who despite having written more than 200 adventure stories set in exotic locations, never set foot outside of Italy. He gaining inspiration through foreign literature, newspapers, travel magazines and encyclopedias. Between 1907-1911 Emilio Salgari published four books, Quest for a Throne (Alla conquista di un impero), Il Bramino dell’Assam (The False Brahman), La caduta di un impero (An Empire Crumbles) and La rivincita di Yanez (Yanez’ Revenge) set in Guwahati, at that time under British colonial rule. In Emilio Salgari and the Tiger Project Alessandra Messali studied the literature of Salgari analyzing the incongruity between text and context in collaboration with the journalist and historian Kumudeswar Hazarica, Guwahati University (History department, prof. Paromita Das), Cotton College (English department, prof. Santanu Phukan) and Handique Girls' College (English department, prof. Mitali Goswami and Tasrina Iqbal).
With students from Handique Girls’ College (English department) and with the technical support of Giuseppe Abate, we translated the results of the research into a theatre play that was held in the Assam State Museum’ public garden on 26th March 2016.