Galpa: Short Stories by Bangladeshi Women

by Niaz Zaman (Editor), Firdous Azim (Editor), Selina Hossain

This vibrant and thought-provoking anthology of translated short stories is representative of the variety of issues that women from Bangladesh tackle in their writings. It includes stories about the 1971 War of Liberation, women’s ‘honour’, mother-daughter relationships, the vagaries of marriage and contemporary political corruption.

Well-established women writers such as Selina Hossain and Nasreen Jahan are represented here, along with emerging writers, the better to evoke the broad range of Bangladeshi women’s literary voices. Daring in both form and theme, these stories reveal the exciting transformation that fiction writing is currently experiencing on the contemporary literary scene.

Niaz Zaman is Professor of English, University of Dhaka. Her publications include the prize-winning study A Divided Legacy: The Partition in Selected Novels of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh; the novel The Crooked Neem Tree and the short story anthology The Dance and Other Stories. She is currently preparing a second collection of short stories for the press.

Firdous Azim is Professor of English at BRAC University in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She has published widely on literary, cultural and women’s issues, both inside and outside the country, including The Colonial Rise of the Novel (1993). She is an active member of Naripokkho, a woman’s activist group in Bangladesh, and is currently working on a women activists’ memoir project.

Genres: Bangladesh, Fiction

280 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2005

About the author

Niaz Zaman is Professor of English, University of Dhaka. She has edited several anthologies, including Selected Stories from Bangladesh, 1971 and After, The Escape and Other Stories, Under the Krishnachura, From the Delta and New Age Short Stories. Her study of the Partition, A Divided Legacy: The Partition in Selected Novels of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, won the Atwar Hussain Award of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh and the National Archives Award. Her creative writings include The Crooked Neem Tree, The Dance and Other Stories, Didima’s Necklace and Other Stories and History of the Family of Sheikh Gul Mohammad (formerly Ghumman Mal of Bhera) with an Account of His Conversion and Some Interesting Chronicles of His Descendants. She was consulting editor, Arts and Humanities for Banglapedia and editor of the Bangladesh Journal of American Studies. From 2003-2005, she was literary editor of New Age, Dhaka. From 1981 to 1983, Dr Zaman was posted to the Bangladesh Embassy in Washington, D.C. as Educational Attaché.

Reviews

[La Bruja Lectora (Tata) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Algunos relatos me dejaron un bonito sabor de boca, cargados con moralejas basadas en los valores humanos que tanto nos enseña la filosofía Hindú en todas sus deidades y facetas, otras me dejaron en el aire sin entender, y unas pocas me dieron sueño haciendo mi lectura mas pesada, mi opinión no cambia, siguen siendo relatos cargados de sabiduría, les dejo abierta y sin estrellas la recomendación de leerlo.

[Nasria · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are authentic and distinct stories. Little snatches of daily life, feelings and relationships within Bengali homes. Stories of people of all ages. They’re all set in Bangladesh, mostly in the villages and some in Dhaka. The collection doesn’t include any British or US Bengali’s stories.

The realistic ones are raw and they read like a Humans of New York style collection set in Bangladesh (basically like reading long-form GMB Akash instagram posts). There are others which include some magical realism.

Even though it’s a collection from women writers, male characters are not missing at all.

I liked the variety in the stories. The very last story was hard to read and understand - confusing.

I’m giving it a 4 because some of the stories were better than others.

I’d recommend it.

[Crazytourists_books · Rating 3 out of 5]

After 6 years in this town, I realised that our local library has a small section dedicated to short stories. And that's where I found this book.
It is quite interesting, a mixture of feminism and women issues, culture, religion, everyday life and struggles in Bangladesh.
As usual, some stories were better than others and made you, well me, they made me crave for more.
I would have liked a few notes from the editors, explaining some things that are not translated because at some point it got tiring to stop reading in order to Google things I didn't know in order to understand the context.
Read it, with a nice bowl of eggplant curry on the side :)

[Rusama · Rating 4 out of 5]

lots of amusing, heart warming, heart wrenching and creative short stories. was very nice to have the opportunity to read about only bengali protagonists 🥰

[Kath · Rating 3 out of 5]

Algunos cuentos estaban muy raros, pero hay otros que me gustaron mucho, y gracias a ellos pide conocer un poco más de Bangladesh y su cultura, el cómo es la sociedad en cuanto al papel de la mujer, la pobreza que se vive en el país, entre otras cosas.

Tuvo sus puntos bajos, pero sin duda la mayoría fue de mi agrado.

[Vanneza · Rating 4 out of 5]

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[Shera (Taylor's version) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind of a dnf?. Got so boring, could not bear it.

[Ferdouse Akhter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some of the stories in the collection seemed to be engaging, however most just appeared to be the same as the one before. I got to about 3/4 of the book and felt that I was wasting my time reading the same thing again. Although I do reccommend some of the stories in teh collection.

[Ishrat · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found most of the stories great.But the last one was confusing,I felt it had too much of an abstract element or I was just too sleepy to concentrate properly.
All in all,it's an inspiring read for me.Go Bengali women!:)