Tea & Biscuits: Six Novellas from Bangladesh [Syed Shamsul Haq’s & Others] [Translation]

Here are six Bangla novellas or short novels written by six different writers translated into English. The novellas are: Syed Shamsul Haq’s The Blue Sting, Ekhlasuddin Ahmed’s Looking Back, Shahzad Firdous’s Vyasa, Zulfiquar Newton’s Ilading Bilading, Sanchita’s A Flock of Luminous Pigeons, Lutfor Rahman Riton’s Ragpicker Amin Ali Ragpicker Pussy Cat. The works are characterised by a delectable diversity. The plots of these short novels range from the atrocities perpetrated by the barbarous occupation army of Pakistan in 1971 to the extra ordinary activities of an incredibly heroic young Bangladeshi woman directed against militant religious fundamentalists; from the nostalgic reminiscences of an ordinary middle class Bengali about a land which was once his home but no longer is, to the fantastic tale of a vagabond ragpicker and a homeless pussy cat; from a symbolic story for young people where birds and trees speak like humans to the legendary life of Vyasadeva, reputed to be the author of the immortal Indian epic The Mahabharata.