Author: Bibhutibhusan Bandyopadhaya
Phyllis Granoff/
Translator(s): Phyllis Granoff
Publisher: Rupa
Year: 2005
Language: English
Pages: 277
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8129106655
Description
This volume for the first time makes available to the English reading public a selection of Bibhutibhushan’s varied stories. The stories are simply told and most often center around the villages of Bengal that Bibhutibhuhan knew from Childhood. Their main concern is always with the small details and small passions of life; often the larger upheavals of society, the World Wars, the struggle for Independence in India, find but scant mention in Bibhutibhushan’s fictional world.
Bibhutibhushan’s stories nonetheless in their fine attention to detail and their remarkable ability to capture subtle-emotions offer the reader an intimate account of life in India during this crucial period of change and development. Like many of his contemporaries Bibhutibhushan wrote of a world that was rapidly disintegrating; with delicacy and empathy his stories reveal to us a traditional society in flux, old values giving way to new attitudes, often at a high human cost.
This volume brings together a variety of short stories by one of India’s most beloved writers. In their richness, their versatility, and their sensitivity they deserve to be numbered among the favourites of all readers of short stories, not just those in India who have enjoyed them now for decades.
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
INTRODUCTION
A NOTE ON THE TRANSLATIONS
A Strange Attachment
The Bathing Steps by the Tamarind Tree
The Festival of Palm Fruits
Home, Sweet Home
Dalu Gets In Trouble
Haridas, Released Soul
Te Friend
The Basella Trellis
Uncle Pancu’s Marriage
Uncle Bhandul’s House
Disaster
Te Savings
The Mail Train
Canvasser Krishnalal
Little Uma
Under The Oil Lamp
The Peddlar
The Flute
The Pushcart
Abhaya’s Insomnia
The Homecoming
Budho’s Mother’s Death
The Turmeric Ceremony
Grandpa
Fennell Flower
Grandma Drab Goes To Beneras
Unfinished Business