Travails With The Alien

Satyajit Ray was a master of science fiction writing. Through his Professor Shonku stories and other fiction and nonfiction pieces he explored the genre from various angles. In the 1960s Ray wrote a screenplay for what would have been the firstofitskind scifi film to be made in India. It was called The Alien and was based on his own short story Bonkubabur Bandhu. On being prompted by Arthur C. Clarke who found the screenplay promising Ray sent the script to Columbia Pictures in Hollywood who agreed to back it and Peter Sellers was approached to play a prominent role. Then started the Ordeals of the Alien as Ray calls it as even after a series of trips to the US UK and France the film was never made and more shockingly some fifteen years later Ray watched Steven Spielbergs film Close Encounters of the Third Kind and later E.T. The ExtraTerrestrial and realized these bore uncanny resemblances to his script The Alien including the way the ET was designed A slice of hitherto undocumented cinema history Travails with the Alien includes Rays detailed essay on the project with the full script of The Alien as well as the original short story on which the screenplay was based. These presented alongside correspondence between Ray and Peter Sellers Arthur C. Clarke Marlon Brando Hollywood producers who showed interest and a fascinating essay by the young student at Columbia Universitys Graduate School of Journalism who broke the Spielberg story make this book a rare and compelling read on science fiction cinema and the art of adaptation.