KHWABNAMA BY AKHTARUZZAMAN ELIAS (TRANSLATED FROM THE BENGALI BY ARUNAVA SINHA)

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BOOK NAME: KHWABNAMA

AUTHOR NAME: AKHTARUZZAMAN ELIAS (TRANSLATED FROM THE BENGALI BY ARUNAVA SINHA)

GENRE: HISTORICAL / POLITICAL FICTION 

PUBLISHER: PENGUIN INDIA




BOOK REVIEW

This book took me an excruciatingly long time—over two and a half months—to complete, but it was totally worth it. I sneaked in a few pages during breaks, managed some reading time after work, and religiously carried it around until I flipped that last page to a close. Although only 550 pages long, it is dense with characters and content and is one of the most complex stories ever told with such lyricism, power, and poignancy. 


The story is set in the pre-partition era when Bangladesh was still a part of India, during the Tebhaga movement that created ripples across the country. The sharecroppers who cultivated their Jomidars’ and Jotedars’ lands, who were indirectly working for the British, were stripped of their benefits and mistreated. The sharecroppers' revolt against these influential people came as an uprising demanding the formation of Pakistan, which believed that the caste system would be eliminated soon after.


Tamiz, the son of a humble fisherman who took up farming on his own, resisted those who tried to suppress his family. His resistance remained the voice of all those who were oppressed until the end. Meanwhile, his father and stepmother, who inherited his maternal grandfather, Cherag Ali’s power to decipher dreams and predict the future, were left vulnerable when his book, Khwabnama, kept switching hands from one person to another. 


This book started as a harmless tale set across generations. However, the theme gradually intensified, exploring the class-based discrimination that demanded lives in the 1940s. The book’s exploration of caste politics and power dynamics during the Indian partition was eye-opening. There were elements of magical realism that blurred the lines between reality, dreams, and the future, but it was one of the best things about the book. 


I cannot imagine how one could have translated such rich prose and tale without an error and without diverting the readers. Truly, it is one of the greatest novels that could have ever been translated. The ending was open for the reader’s interpretation and furiously satisfying. I don’t have an ounce of regret for spending a ridiculous amount of time on this book. I would do it all over again if I could. In short, Khwabnama (A Scroll of Dreams) is a masterpiece in the world of literature and translation.


This is a part of BlogchatterA2Z2026 challenge

#penbooksandscalpel

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