The golden Gandhi statue from America : early stories

An unemployed young man is invited to his lover's wedding and decides to gift her a bottle of his own blood. Rumours of a great big flood or the end of days or a rebellion of refugees in Calcutta fly through the country. Haran majhi's starved widow's corpse floats down rivers and swamps and drains as the nation awaits eagerly the unveiling of the golden Gandhi statue from America. The early stories of Subimal Misra took the Bengali literary world by storm upon their publication in the late 1960s. Distinct from the conventional modes of storytelling that preceded him, Misra's pieces are more anti-stories than stories, a montage of images that flow into each other and tell a tale with greater power and urgency than narrative fiction. Every story hits hard, gripping the reader with intensity and an underlying fantastical horror that is firmly rooted in reality. V. Ramaswamy's exceptional translation brings to the fore the contemporaneity of Misra's work while retaining the verve and pungency of the original. Anti establishment and revolutionary,t hese stories by a writer whom many consider to be a cult figure in Bengali literature resonate with truths that are undeniable even today, forty years after they were written. An unemployed young man is invited to his lover's wedding and decides to gift her a bottle of his own blood. Rumours of a great big flood or a rebellion of refugees in Calcutta fly through the country. Haran Majhi's starved widow's corpse floats down rivers and swamps and drains as the nation eagerly awaits the unveiling of the golden Gandhi statue from America. The early stories of Subimal Misra took the Bengali literary world by storm upon their publication in the late 1960s. Misra's pieces are more anti-stories than stories, a montage of images that flow into each other and tell a tale with greater power and urgency than narrative fiction. Anti-establishment and revolutionary, these stories by a writer whom many consider to be a cult figure in Bengali literature resonate with truths that are undeniable even today, forty years after they were written. The golden Gandhi statue from America Uncle Seer The camel The bird The money tree Times, bad times The naked knife Amber light at Park Street crossing The dagger Fairy girl Blood Brothers whitty and shitty Commentary '71 Bare bones awakened Feeling distant.