Beloved Rongomala by Shaheen Akhtar, set in 18th century Bengal, tells the tale of the murder of the mistress of a young king, exploring caste, gender and class.
In eighteenth-century Bengal, the East India Company’s influence and power is growing; the treasuries of the zamindars are emptying out and their mansions crumbling. Young Raj Chandra Chowdhury remains oblivious to these epochal changes. He’s preoccupied with Rongomala, his mistress, a low-born dancing girl. His uncle Rajendra Narayan sees a chance, conspiring to take over. Meanwhile, Raj Chandra’s childlike wife Phuleswari has developed a queer bond of sisterhood with her nemesis. As for Rongomala, herself, she dares to defy her caste status by demanding that a lake be dug in her name; she wishes to be remembered even after her youth and beauty have run their course. It is an audacity that might cost her dearly.
Shaheen Akhtar’s Beloved Rongomala turns a fading footnote from rural Bengal’s history into a saga of caste, class and gender that bristles with cinematic detail. Exquisitely translated by Shabnam Nadiya, this sprawling tale of passion, avarice and betrayal is one of the most memorable novels to come out of Bangladesh in recent years.
Author:
Shaheen Akhtar
Translator: Shabnam Nadiya
ISBN:
9789395073356
Binding:
Paperback
Pages:
286
Year of Publication:
2022
Publisher:
Westland Books
Edition:
First
Condition:
New
Country of Origin:
India
About the Author
The author was born in 1962 is a Bangladeshi writer.
She was born in Comilla and studied economics at Dhaka University. She next studied and worked at film-making in India, returning to Bangladesh in 1991. She used to write short stories when she was younger. Her first novel was Palabar Path Nei (No Escape Route), a story that explored the life of two single women in Dhaka,. Shaheen’s second novel Talaash won the Prothom Alo Best Book of the Year Award for 2004. For this novel She also won the 3rd Asian Literary Award-2020, a major prize in South Korea, Talaash (In English: The Search, trans. Ella Dutta), translated into Korean by Seung Hee Jeon. Talaash (The Search) is about birangana (literally heroic women) of Bangladesh - women who were raped during the liberation war in 1971.
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