The Penguin Book of Bengali Short Stories

A landmark anthology, staking a new claim for Bengali literature in English.

The prose short story arrived in Bengal in the wake of British colonisers, and Bengali writers quickly made the form their own. By the twentieth century, a profusion of literary magazines and journals meant they were being avidly read by millions.

Writers responded to this hunger for words with a ferocious energy which reflected the turmoil of their times—these stories covered land wars, famine, the caste system, religious conflict, patriarchy, Partition, and the liberation war that saw the emergence of the independent country of Bangladesh. Across these shifting geographical borders, writers also looked inward, evolving new literary styles and stretching the possibilities of social realism, political fiction, and intimate domestic tales.

A first in English, The Penguin Book of Bengali Short Stories gathers together a century's worth of extraordinary stories. From a woman who eats fish in secret to the woes of an ageing local footballer, from the anxieties of a middle-class union rep to a lawyer who stumbles upon a philosopher's stone, this is a collection that celebrates making art of life, in all its difficulty and joy.