The Laughter of a Slave [Translation]
The Laughter of a Slave is a moving and powerful tale about the indomitable spirit of man, dramatically personified in the black slave Tatari. The beauty of the slave\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s free laughter is expressed through his love for his clandestine wife, the Armenian slave-girl Meherjan. And the poet Abu Ishaq sings of that spirit which chains can fetter but not break. Set in the Caliph Harun-al-Rashid\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s exotic Baghdad, full of sensuous scenes of love and cruelty, it is essentially a parable of all times: the glorious struggle of a heroic soul which bends neither to temptation nor to torture, which accepts death but not defeat. The story has a particular relevance in our time, when the noble and defiant spirit of man is subjected to all kinds of pressures by various forces, including the Establishment. The original book in Bengali, entitled Kritadasher Hashi, was awarded the Adamjee Prize for Literature, Pakistan\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s Pulitzer Prize The Translator: Kabir Chowdhury (1923) is a noted translator, critic and essayist. His elegant and lively English translations of Bengali poems, novels and short stories have been widely acclaimed at home and abroad. He has received many national and international awards for his contributions in the field of literature, education and peace.
Shaukat Osman (1917-1998) earned recognition as promising writer of short stories in the forties. A tireless experimenter, he has written some very fine short stories, novels and plays. His writings are characterized by a board humanism and a deep concern for the underprivileged. He is a recipient of the Bangla Academy award in literature for proficiency in the field of short stories, the Presidential Award for Paride of Performance in the field of Bengali literature, and the Adamjee Literary Prize for his nove, The Laughter of a Slave.