By Shahaduz Zaman
Genre: Fiction
Imprint: Moving Words
Here is a conversation with translator Noora Shamsi Bahar.
Read the review of The Mynah Bird’s Testimony done by The Daily Star .
Translated from the Bengali by V. Ramaswamy and Noora Shamsi Bahar
“He had realised that man walked endlessly on a tightrope – at one end of which lay truth, with falsehood on the other. He had realised that constructing the truth according to the situation was what clever folk did.”
Deftly translated, the twelve stories of this Anthology explore Shahaduz Zaman’s keen insight into the myriad aspects of human consciousness, of walking the tightrope of life, the possibility of morality, humanity, goodness in the face of war, greed and corruption.
Book Details
Language: English
Paperback: 208 pages
ISBN-13: 978-8196690076
Formats: Paperback
Price: ₹375
Buy it online from
Available at book stores
Click here to view the list
Find the store near you. This list will keep growing!
Chennai
Words & Worths Books
#E28, 2nd Avenue,
GOCHS Colony, Besant Nagar,
Chennai – 600090
P: +91 44 2446 8659
Bengaluru
Gangarams Book Bureau
#3, 3rd floor, Church Street,
Bengaluru – 560001.
M: +91 98450 58922
E: [email protected]
Bengaluru
Blossom Book House
#2, 3rd floor, Prestige Commercial Complex,
Above Matteo Coffee,
Church Street,
Bengaluru – 560001.
M: +91 94493 73202
P: +91 80 4122 2954
E: [email protected]
Bengaluru
Blossom Book House
84/6, Church Street,
Opposite Amoeba,
Bengaluru – 560001.
P: +91 80 2523 0400,
+91 80 2555 9733
E: [email protected]
Bengaluru
Made For Kids
(Children’s books)
2nd Floor, No. 56, Nehru Road,
St. Thomas Town,
Kacharakanahalli,
Bengaluru – 560084
Bengaluru
Bond Over Bindings
(Children’s books)
#121 & #122, Telecom Layout,
2nd Cross, Srirampura,
Jakkur Post,
Bengaluru – 560064.
M: +91 86605 67604
E: [email protected]
Kolkata
Earthcare Books
10 Middleton Street,
Kolkata – 700071.
P: +91 33 2229 6551
M: +91 97692 91586
E: [email protected]
Kolkata
Harit Story
H/345, Baishnabghata Patuli Township, Garia,
Kolkata – 700094.
M: +91 83369 41108
E: [email protected]
Kolkata
Pratikshan BoiChaGhar
5, 1st floor, Surya Sen Street,
(above State Bank of India),
College Square,
Kolkata – 700012
M: +91 86978 42309
E: [email protected]
Santiniketan (Bolpur)
Boiwala Book Cafe
Ratanpally,
Santiniketan – 732135.
M: +91 98746 44400
E: [email protected]
Dhaka (Bangladesh)
Bengal Boi
House 42, Road No 27,
Sekh Kamal Sarani,
Dhanmundi,
Dhaka – 1209, Bangladesh.
P: +880 1844 050676
E: [email protected]
Dhaka (Bangladesh)
Pathak Shamabesh Centre
Building #04, 1st Floor,
Bangladesh National Museum,
Dhaka – 1000, Bangladesh.
P: +880 1841 234612
About Shahaduz
Shahaduz Zaman has published over 30 books in Bengali in different genres such as short stories, novels, travelogues, and essays. He won the Bangla Academy Literary Award in 2016 in the fiction category, the highest national award for literature in Bangladesh.
Read more
His historical docufiction ‘Kracher Colonel’ is a national best seller. A number of his books have been adapted into films and stage dramas. A film ‘Komola Rocket’ scripted by him has received several national and international awards and is available on Netflix. His biopic novel based on the famous Bengali poet Jibonanondo Das, titled ‘Ekjon Komolalebu’ has been adapted for a theatre production and staged in London.
Read some of his translated works.
About Ramaswamy
V. Ramaswamy (1960) is a non-fiction writer and translator based in Kolkata, India. As an activist working for the rights of the labouring poor, Ramaswamy has written about workers, squatters, slums, poverty, housing and resettlement, and has been at the forefront of efforts to envision and initiate the rebuilding of his city from the grassroots.
Read more
He has translated the Bengali writers Subimal Misra, Manoranjan Byapari, Adhir Biswas, Shahidul Zahir, Mashiul Alam, Shahaduz Zaman, Swati Guha, Ansaruddin, and Ismail Darbesh, among others.
Ramaswamy received the Toji fellowship in 2015, and the inaugural Literature Across Frontiers – Charles Wallace India Trust fellowship in creative writing and translation at Aberystwyth University, Wales, in 2016. He received the inaugural translation fellowship of the New India Foundation, and the inaugural PEN Presents award in 2022. His translation of Life and Political Reality: Two Novellas, by Shahidul Zahir, was awarded the prize for best translated book for 2022 by the Bangla Translation Foundation (Dhaka). The Nemesis, by Manoranjan Byapari, was shortlisted for the JCB Prize for literature in 2023. Ramaswamy’s final translation of Subimal Misra’s late anti-stories, The Earth Quakes, was published in 2024.
Read some of his translation works.
About Noora
Noora Shamsi Bahar is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of English and Modern Languages, North South University. She completed her MA in English from The University of Western Ontario and has been teaching undergraduate students since 2010.
Read more
She has presented research papers on the themes of violence (on the page, stage, and screen), performative revenge, rape trauma, childhood defiance, and transgressive womanhood in Oxford, Prague, and Dhaka. Despite being born to Iranian parents, she finds pleasure in reading short fiction in Bengali – her third language, and translating them into English. Her translations have been published in anthologies, magazines, and dailies.