BOOKPATHS

Bangladesh

A Golden Age: a Novel, by Tahmima Anam (New York: Harper, 2007)

Set during the 1971 Bangladesh War of Independence, A Golden Age follows the wartime experiences of Rehana Haque, widow and mother of two, 17-year-old Maya and 19-year-old Soheil. At first oblivious to the political unrest and only interested in protecting her children from danger, Rehana finds herself gradually pulled into the rebellion that has claimed her children’s passion and patriotism.

The sky over Bengal is empty. No mountains interrupt it; no valleys, no hills, no dimples in the landscape. It is flat, like a swamp, or a river that has nowhere to go. The eye longs for some blister on the horizon, some marker of distance, but finds none. Occasionally there are clouds; often there is rain, but these are only colours: the laundry-white of the cumulus, the black mantle of the monsoon.

Beyond the city there are no beautiful buildings that might sink in the heat or wilt under generations of rain. The promise of the land is not in the cities – their sky touching glamour, the tragedy of their run – but in the vast unfolding plains, this empty sky, this stretching horizon. Every year the land will turn to sea as it disappears under the spell of water, and then prevail again, as if by magic, and this refrain, this looping repetition, is the archive of its long, flood-turned history. – from A Golden Age, by Tahmima Anam

Related Websites

Publisher’s Website

Tahmima Anam Website

Bangladesh

Sandip Roy interviews Tahmima Anam, whose new novel, A Golden Age, is “set against the birth of Bangladesh."

“Anam wanted to write an ‘in-the-trenches epic novel with a much wider canvas’ about the 1971 war that wrested East Pakistan away from West Pakistan to create Bangladesh. But in the end, she says, Rehana, the young widow whose wrenching admission at her husband's grave opens the book, ‘took over.’" – from “India’s Bangladesh’s Birthing Pains," by Sandip Roy, San Francisco Chronicle

Bangladesh

Tahmima Anam talks about her first novel, Golden Age, set during the Bangladesh war for independence.

“Anam’s first novel, A Golden Age, revolves around a family headed by a widow named Rehana – a character inspired by Anam’s grandmother and the small but remarkable role she played in that war.” – from NPR Website (Morning Edition)

Bangladesh

Driven out of Kolkata last week, Taslima Nasrin talks to Kathleen McCaul “from hiding.”

“’I want to live in Kolkata, I don't want to live in Europe, I can't write there,’ she said. ‘I write in Bengali and I need to be surrounded by the Bengali language and culture.’ For two years it seemed she might have found a home there, but last week's events - which saw 50 people injured and a curfew imposed - have put paid to that dream.” – from “Condemned to Life as an Outsider,” by Kathleen McCaul, The Guardian

Bangladesh

William Radice remembers Shamsur Rahman, “the greatest Bengali poet of his generation,” who has died at age 76.

“The author of more than 60 books of poems and many prose works, he gave in his writing an impression of effortless eloquence.” – from “Shamsur Rahman : Visionary Poet of Bangladesh’s Freedom Struggle, Without Vanity or Affectation,” by William Radice, The Guardian

The Sundarbans (Bangladesh and India)

The islands are the trailing threads of India's fabric, the ragged fringe of her sari, the ãchol that follows her, half wetted by the sea. They number in the thousands, these islands. Some are immense and some no larger than sandbars; some have lasted through recorded history while others were washed into being just a year or two ago. These islands are the rivers' restitution, the offerings through which they return to the earth what they have taken from it, but in such a form as to assert their permanent dominion over their gift.... --from The Hungry Tide, by Amitav Ghosh

The Hungry Tide, by Amitav Ghosh (Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 2005)

After finishing The Hungry Tide, by Amitav Ghosh, it is the Sundarbans that are remembered as the main character; the others -- Kanai, Piya, Fokir, Nirmal, Nilima, Kusam, Horen -- are guides, introducing readers, through their interweaving stories, to the history, beauty, and dangers of this vast delta. And, there is so much beauty in The Hungry Tide, including the intricacy of the tidal system, the vast mangrove forests covering island upon island, Bengal tigers, rare dolphins, and the legends the islands have inspired. But, dangers are expected, the norm, as man-eating tigers and crocodiles hunt for food; storms rage, drowning islands and inhabitants; and governments make the wrong decisions.

The Hungry Tide will keep the Sundarbans in your memory -- their beauty; fragility; and questions, including the relationship between humans and nature. You'll leave its pages caring about what happens to the "tide country."

Find out more about Amitav Ghosh at www.amitavghosh.com/. Read reviews and an excerpt from The Hungry Tide on the publisher's website.

'The difference, Kanai,' Piya said slowly and emphatically, 'is that it was what was intended -- not by you or me, but by nature, by the earth, by the planet that keeps us all alive. Just suppose we crossed the imaginary line that prevents us from deciding that no other species matters except ourselves. What'll be left then? Aren't we alone enough in the universe? And do you think it'll stop at that? Once we decide we can kill off other species, it'll be people next -- just the kind of people you're thinking of, people who're poor and unnoticed.' -- from The Hungry Tide, by Amitav Ghosh

And now, indeed, everything began to look new, unexpected, full of surprises. I had a book in my hands to while away the time, and it occurred to me that in a way landscape is not unlike a book -- a compilation of pages that overlap without any two ever being the same. People open the book according to their taste and training, their memories and desires: for a geologist the compilation opens at page one, for a boatman at another, and still another for a ship's pilot, a painter and so on. On occasion these pages are ruled with lines that are invisible to some people, while being for others as real, as charged and as volatile as high-voltage cables. -- from The Hungry Tide, by Amitav Ghosh

"This is a land half submerged at high tide: it is only in falling that the water gives birth to forest. To look upon this strange parturition, midwifed by the moon, is to know why the name 'tide country' is not just right but necessary." -- from The Hungry Tide, by Amitav Ghosh

For more on the Sundarbans visit:

The Sundarbans
http://www.smartoffice.com/tiger/

Visit Bangladesh : the Sundarbans
http://www.betelco.com/bd/sundar/sundar/html

UNESCO World Heritage Site
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/798