I love books in translation, they might be my favourite sub-genre of all. I understand that some of the power of the original book is often lost in translation, but in my experience, there is also a lot of value added simply by exploring the use of language, particularly metaphors and similes from across the world. All that being said, I was extremely excited to read these two novellas, translated from Bengali by V. Ramaswamy and Shahroza Nahrin. Bengali literature has always been a heavyweight in translation providing a rich insight into life in the Indian subcontinent. With its commentary on anti-colonial resistance, the Partition of India, and post-independence struggles its themes of displacement, survival, and revolution resonate with international readers. Concomitantly, Bengali authors have an envious mastery of prose, using language to convey emotions, from the benign to the visceral, in the most evocative way. I’m pleased to report Life and Political Reality: Two Novellas by Shahidul Zahir, continues in this wonderful tradition.

The titular novella, Life and Political Reality, starts with Abdul Mojid’s sandal strap snapping on Nawabpur Road, in the mid-1980s. This isn’t just a mundane accident. It acts as a violent, surreal rift in time, instantly dragging both the protagonist and the reader back into the blood-soaked days of 1971, during Bangladesh’s war of liberation that resulted in the secession of East Pakistan and the creation of the independent nation of Bangladesh. The story is told in a single paragraph, like a single breath, to convey a sense of urgency. Voices blend into one another—from a teenager to a grieving sister—in a relentless stream of consciousness. This stylistic choice is a brilliant, surreal manifestation of the collective consciousness. The trauma belongs to the mohalla (the community). The claustrophobic structure forces the reader to sit uncomfortably within the shared headspace of a nation experiencing genocide. Zahir doesn’t use surrealism as a whimsical escape, instead the surreal is the only functional language capable of processing massive, systemic trauma and colonial echoes. He tears down the traditional structure of fiction to expose the psychological scars of a community refusing to succumb to political amnesia. He uses gothic animal imagery, such as “ominous cloud of crows and termites” to reflect human depravity, especially of those collaborating with the enemy.

This novella is a sharp critique of our collective amnesia to the horrors of colonial rule. Even as the community begins to forget the terrors that befell them, nature continues to revive its violence. As shoots grow from the once blood-soaked pavements, Zahir reminds us that even as states try to bury the past and forgive war criminals, the literal earth acts as a surreal repository of memory. Zahir proves that literature shouldn’t make us comfortable. By distorting reality, he reveals a deeper, more corrosive truth about how societies remember, forget, and survive state-sponsored horror.

The second story, Abu Ibrahim’s Death, breaks in both storytelling and style from the first. It is about a middle class bureaucrat who refuses to engage in a bribe, even at the behest of his wife. In a country recovering from war but now in the clutches of a military dictatorship. His refusal to partake in the corruption rampant around him, doesn’t earn him respect, it only serves to alienate him from colleagues, strains his family life, and ultimately leads to his quiet, tragic destruction. His professional ethical standards are juxtaposed with his private moral integrity as he traverses complicated feelings towards a long-ago relationship with a university friend, Helen. The title spoils the reader as to what happens in the story, but this is a very deliberate act delivering an unapologetic truth: in a political reality built on institutionalised theft, the survival of an honest man is a structural impossibility.

The pairing of the two novellas, one from the collective and the other from the individual perspective, are ultimately haunted by the exact same ghost, the lost ideals of the liberation war. While the first story shows how the state rehabilitated war criminals for political expediency, and how wider society forgot and forgave their crimes, the second demonstrates the consequences of that compromise, a society where the corrupt inherit the earth, and the quiet, deliberate erasure of the virtuous. It’s a principle that can easily apply to many nations post colonial rule, where the ultimate victim is always the soul of the people.

For me, this was a profoundly moving read that highlighted the power of stories, to connect but also to remind. The fact that Zahir was able to create such distinct voices, such magical storytelling and such powerful political realities in such concise and incisive novellas, speaks to the mastery of his work. If a story can be this potent in translation, I wonder what it must be like to read the original.

I would recommend this to everyone. Not once, but twice. Really saviour the joy of reading a masterpiece.

Have you read this or any other works by Shahidul Zahir? Or any other translated works by the greats of Bengali literature? I love some recommendations and to know your thoughts, let me know in the comments below.