From the Delta: English Fiction from Bangladesh

From the Delta: English Fiction from Bangladesh, edited by Niaz Zaman; Dhaka: The University Press Limited; 2005; Tk. 400; 211 pp.

Of particular interest to me was Syed Waliullah's short story 'No Enemy' which was written in English and later translated into Bengali (Nishphal Jiban Nishphal Jatra). It made me reach for my Bengali Waliullah stories, and I was somewhat struck by the fact that the author himself apparently did not think it was absolutely necessary that the translation stick closely to the English original. Each has its own different atmospherics. This should provide some food for thought to would-be translators of his fiction.

Of note among the other stories are those by Kazi Anis Ahmed, Nuzhat Mannan, Syed Badrul Hasan and Razia Khan. The latter's is an unexpectedly caustic piece on the writer's lot in our society, while Hasan's tale is a sly, unusual take on Bengalis in London. However it is Kazi Anis Ahmed (in a story titled 'Forty Steps' previously published in The Minnesota Review) who shows the most promise:

"(Mr. Shikdar) shaved standing in front of his bedroom window. It overlooked the Bararasta, which was the only concrete road in Jamshedpur. The rest were gravel or mud paths. It was a Tuesday, and on Tuesdays the grocers were permitted to open shop on the Bararasta, rather than in the bazaar at the periphery of the town. The spot of Bararasta right in front of Mr. Shikdar's house was monopolized by the fishsellers. Warm haggling voices and the rank smell of dead fish floated in through Mr. Shikdar's window.

'First hilsa of the season, take it for your son-in-law,' yelled Abdullah, the fishmonger.
'How much for the hilsa?'
'Five hundred.'
'Pah, for five hundred I could buy the whole river; this is just a hilsa.'

'Yes, but try cooking the river and try cooking my hilsa,' said Abdullah, who was usually more interested in the bargaining than in the selling. People would stand around and quibble with him endlessly, even if they had no intention of buying fish."

A small issue is raised by the masking of a four letter word in one story by asterisks. I for one think that, given the convention everywhere else, the time for such fig leaves in serious writing is long past. Future English writing here will probably reflect this fact.

Lastly, though the printer's devil lurks (N. Sobhan's 'The Last Letter' has 'Latter' on page headings) and the editor's pen is occasionally absent (in, for example, the curious sentence on p. 166, "the foreignness of falling in love is chillying not the carefree commitment such marriages impose," or on p. 157, "...beginning to take the negative situations into her stride"), by Dhaka English language productions standards the volume is outstanding.

Khademul Islam is literary editor, The Daily Star.