Author: Qurratulain Hyder
Publisher: Sterling
Year: 1996/2004
Language: English
Pages: 345
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8120718526
Description
An exciting saga of the last battles the British administrators fought in Bengal in the twilight of the Raj. Their enemies in this story were not the non-violent Gandhians, but the young terrorists who had been inspired by the anti-British Irish, and the Bolsheviks of Russia. They threw bombs at their rulers and as underground activities they also tried to outwit English civilians and police officers. Many of these radicals were sent to the gallows. They included both Hindus and Muslims.
The story of Fireflies in the Mist unfolds the age-old British connection and the love-hate relationship between England and India, through the successive generations of the fictitious Barlow family of diehard Bengal Civilians. The narrative begins in 1939 and covers the stormy years preceding the Partition of 1947, the creation of Bangladesh and the subsequent diaspora of Bengalis.
MEDIA REVIEWS:
Hyder is capable of writing lyrical prose and captures the beauty of the Bengal countryside better than any author has done before her. - Khushwant Singh
Never bound to a single ideology or perspective, Hyder articulates one viewpoint only to contradict it in another voice.. Subtle and intricately structured, Fireflies is almost entirely located in territory (today's Bangladesh) scarcely mapped by anglophone fiction. - Aamer Hussein, Times Literary Supplement, London.