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শেষ প্রশ্ন by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay
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A Matter of Time
Shashi Deshpande - 1999
His wife, Sumi, returns with their three daughters to the shelter of the Big House where her parents, Kalyani and Shripati, live in oppressive silence: they have not spoken to each other in thirty-five years. As the mystery of this long silence is unraveled, a horrifying story of suffering and loss is laid bare, a story that seems to be repeating itself in Sumi's life.Set in present day Karnataka, A Matter of Time explores the intricate relationships within an extended family encompassing three generations. Images from Hindu religion, myth, and local history twine delicately with images of contemporary India as this family faces and accepts the changes that have suddenly become part of their lives. As their secrets and strengths are revealed, so are the complications of family and culture. This multigenerational story, told in the individual voices of the characters, catches each in turn in the cycles of love, loss, strength, and renewal that become an essential part of their identities.
The Slaughterman’s Daughter
Yaniv Iczkovits - 2015
What on earth possessed her?Could it have anything to do with Fanny's missing brother-in-law, who left her sister almost a year ago and ran away to Minsk, abandoning his family to destitution and despair?Or could Fanny have been lured away by Zizek Breshov, the mysterious ferryman on the Yaselda river, who, in a strange twist of events, seems to have disappeared on the same night?Surely there can be no link between Fanny and the peculiar roadside murder on the way to Telekhany, which has left Colonel Piotr Novak, head of the Russian secret police, scratching his head. Surely that could have nothing to do with Fanny Keismann, whatever her past, whatever her reputation as a wilde chayeh, a wild beast . . . Surely not.
Zorba the Greek
Nikos Kazantzakis - 1946
Zorba, a Greek working man, is a larger-than-life character, energetic and unpredictable. He accompanies the unnamed narrator to Crete to work in the narrator’s lignite mine, and the pair develops a singular relationship. The two men couldn’t be further apart: The narrator is cerebral, modest, and reserved; Zorba is unfettered, spirited, and beyond the reins of civility. Over the course of their journey, he becomes the narrator’s greatest friend and inspiration and helps him to appreciate the joy of living.Zorba has been acclaimed as one of the most remarkable figures in literature; he is a character in the great tradition of Sinbad the Sailor, Falstaff, and Sancho Panza. He responds to all that life offers him with passion, whether he’s supervising laborers at a mine, confronting mad monks in a mountain monastery, embellishing the tales of his past adventures, or making love. Zorba the Greek explores the beauty and pain of existence, inviting readers to reevaluate the most important aspects of their lives and live to the fullest.
Love in the Time of Cholera
Gabriel García Márquez - 1985
When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is heartbroken, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career he whiles away the years in 622 affairs—yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again.
The Windfall
Diksha Basu - 2017
and Mrs. Jha’s lives have been defined by cramped spaces, cut corners, gossipy neighbors, and the small dramas of stolen yoga pants and stale marriages. They thought they’d settled comfortably into their golden years, pleased with their son’s acceptance into an American business school. But then Mr. Jha comes into an enormous and unexpected sum of money, and moves his wife from their housing complex in East Delhi to the super-rich side of town, where he becomes eager to fit in as a man of status: skinny ties, hired guards, shoe-polishing machines, and all. The move sets off a chain of events that rock their neighbors, their marriage, and their son, who is struggling to keep a lid on his romantic dilemmas and slipping grades, and brings unintended consequences, ultimately forcing the Jha family to reckon with what really matters..
Yayati: A Classic Tale of Lust
Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar - 1963
Yayati was a great scholar and one of the noblest rulers of olden times. He followed the shastras and was devoted to the welfare of his subjects. Even the King of Gods, Indra, held him in high esteem. Married to seductively beautiful Devyani, in love with her maid Sharmishtha, and father of five sons from two women, yet Yayati unabashedly declares, My lust for pleasure is unsatisfied. His quest for the carnal continued, sparing not even his youngest son, and exchanging his old age for his son s youth.
മയ്യഴിപ്പുഴയുടെ തീരങ്ങളിൽ | Mayyazhippuzhayude Theerangalil
M. Mukundan - 1974
Mukundan. Widely regarded as the author's magnum opus, the novel vividly describes the political and social background of Mahe (Mayyazhi), the former French colony, in the past, in a mystical way.[1] The novel was translated into English and French, both the versions winning accolades.
The Nine-Chambered Heart
Janice Pariat - 2017
We piece her together, much as we do with others in our lives, in incomplete but illuminating slivers. Set in familiar and nameless cities, moving between east and west, The Nine-Chambered Heart is a compendium of shifting perspectives that follows one woman's life, making her dazzlingly real in one moment, and obscuring her in the very next. Janice Pariat's exquisitely written new novel is about the fragile, fragmented nature of identity - how others see us only in bits and pieces, and how sometimes we tend to become what others perceive us to be
The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana
Mallanaga Vātsyāyana
Burton’s translation of The Kama Sutra remains one of the best English interpretations of this early Indian treatise on politics, social customs, love, and intimacy. Its crisp style set a new standard for Sanskrit translation.The Kama Sutra stands uniquely as a work of psychology, sociology, Hindu dogma, and sexology. It has been a celebrated classic of Indian literature for 1,700 years and a window for the West into the culture and mysticism of the East.This Modern Library Paperback Classic reprints the authoritative text of Sir Richard F. Burton’s 1883 translation.
Fever Dream
Samanta Schweblin - 2014
A boy named David sits beside her. She’s not his mother. He’s not her child. Together, they tell a haunting story of broken souls, toxins, and the power and desperation of family. Fever Dream is a nightmare come to life, a ghost story for the real world, a love story and a cautionary tale. One of the freshest new voices to come out of the Spanish language and translated into English for the first time, Samanta Schweblin creates an aura of strange psychological menace and otherworldly reality in this absorbing, unsettling, taut novel.
About the Night
Anat Talshir - 2014
Elias is a Christian Arab living on the eastern side of the newly divided city, and Lila is a Jew living on the western side. A growing conflict between their cultures casts a heavy shadow over the region and their burgeoning relationship. Between them lie not only a wall of stone and barbed wire but also the bitter enmity of two nations at war.Told in the voice of Elias as he looks back upon the long years of his life, About the Night is a timely story of how hope can nourish us, loss can devastate us, and love can carry us beyond the boundaries that hold human beings apart.
रावीपार
गुलज़ार - 1999
The stories in this book have their roots in the Indian culture but express universal emotions that are experienced across the boundaries of regions, caste, and creed. Varied emotions of love, heartbreak, aloofness, anxiety, fear, and longing are expressed in this book.There is one story in which movie star Dilip Kumar breaks the heart of a young girl. There is another where a man pushes off another from a moving train. Raavi Paar also tells the story of a Muslim man whose wish is to be cremated after death and not be buried. There is also a story about a married woman who realises that the only reason for her husband to marry her was to use her as cheap labour.The title of this book is an incident from the author’s own life. During the India-Pakistan partition, the author was mistakenly claimed as their own child by another family. Raavi Paar consists of stories which will touch the reader’s hearts due to the simplicity and intricacy of emotions portrayed by the author.
Clear Light of Day
Anita Desai - 1980
At the heart of this “wonderful” novel are the moving relationships between the estranged members of the Das family (Washington Post Book World). Bimla is a dissatisfied but ambitious teacher at a women’s college who lives in her childhood home, where she cares for her mentally challenged brother, Baba. Tara is her younger, unambitious sister, married and with children of her own. Raja is their popular, brilliant, and successful brother. When Tara returns for a visit with Bimla and Baba, old memories and tensions resurface, blending into a domestic drama that leads to beautiful and profound moments of self-understanding.Set in the vividly portrayed environs of Old Delhi, “Clear Light of Day does what only the very best novels can do: it totally submerges us. It also takes us so deeply into another world that we almost fear we won’t be able to climb out again” (New York Times Book Review).“Passages must be read and reread so that you savor their imagery, their language, and their wisdom.” ??—?? Washington Post Book World“[A] thoroughly universal tale of unhealable family hurts . . . Distinctively shaded with enticing glimpses of India’s Hindu middle-class in shabby decline.” ??—?? Kirkus Reviews, starred review