Taslima Nasrin

My Bengali Girlhood

Meyebela

The Dattas have lived in Bangladesh all their lives. Despite being members of a small Hindu community, they refuse to leave the country. And then, on 6 December 1992, the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya is demolished by a mob of Hindu fundamentalists. The nightmare inevitably arrives at the Dattas' doorstep, and their world begins to fall apart.

Lajja

French Lover is the story of Nilanjana, a young Bengali woman from Kolkata who moves to Paris after getting married to Kishanlal, a restaurant owner. Kishanlal's luxurious apartment seems to be a gilded cage for Nilanjana, and she feels stifled within its friendless confines. Her marriage, where she functions as little more than a housekeeper and sex object, is far from fulfilling and Nilanjana desperately looks for a way out of the boredom and depression that threaten to engulf her. It is at this point that she meets Benoir Dupont, a blond, blue-eyed handsome Frenchman, and is swept off her feet. Benoir introduces Nilanjana to the streets, cafes and art galleries of Paris. In her passionate, sexually liberating relationship with Benoir, she finally begins to have an inkling of her own desires. The relationship ends when Nilanjana realises that Benoir's first priority is himself and not the woman he loves, and that her need for him has ended. But her road to self-discovery has only just begun. Bold in concept and powerful in execution, French Lover is a fascinating glimpse into the workings of a woman's mind as she struggles to come to terms with her identity in a hostile world.

French Lover

Set in the backdrop of the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, this book recollects Taslima Nasrin's early years. From her birth on a holy day to the dawn of womanhood at fourteen to her earliest memories that alternate between scenes of violence, memories of her pious mother, the rise of religious fundamentalism, the trauma of molestation and the beginning of a journey that redefined her world, My Girlhood is a tour de force.

My Girlhood

Nirbasita Naarir Kabita

LAJJA

Na, An

Exile

Taslima Nasrin is known for her powerful writing on women's rights and uncompromising criticism of religious fundamentalism. This defiance on her part had led to the ban on the Bengali original of this book by the Left Front in West Bengal as well as the Government of Bangladesh in 2003. While the West Bengal government lifted the injunction after the ban was struck down by the Calcutta High Court in 2005, Nasrin was eventually driven out of Kolkata and forced to expunge passages from the book, besides facing a four-million-dollar defamation lawsuit. Bold and evocative, Split: A Life opens a window to the experiences and works of one of the bravest writers of our times.

A Life

Split

From the exiled Bangladeshi poet and internationally acclaimed author of Shame comes a delicious tale about getting even. In modern Bangladesh, Jhumur marries for love and imagines life with her husband, Haroon, will continue just as it did when they were dating. But once she crosses the threshold of Haroon’s lavish family home, Jhumur is expected to play the role of a traditional Muslim wife: head covered, eyes averted, and unable to leave the house without an escort. When she becomes pregnant, Jhumur is shocked to discover that Haroon does not believe the baby is his, demanding an immediate termination of the pregnancy. Overwhelmed by his distrust, Jhumur plots her payback in the arms of a handsome and artistic neighbor. Readers the world over will eat up this cautionary tale of love, lust, and blood ties, delivered by the award-winning “voice of humanism everywhere” (Wole Soyinka).

A Fable

Revenge

তসলিমা নাসরিন আত্মজীবনী ৭ম খণ্ড

নির্বাসন | Nirbason

On 22 November 2007, the city of Kolkata came to a rude, screeching halt as a virulent mob of religious fanatics took to the streets. Armed with a fatwa from their ideologues, the mob demanded Taslima Nasrin leave the city immediately. While the Kolkata Police allegedly stood watching, mere dumb witnesses to such hooliganism, a morally, intellectually and politically bankrupt Left Front government, tottering under the strain of their thirty-year-old backward-looking rule, decided to ban her book and drive her out of Kolkata, a city she has always considered her second home. Dark, provocative and, at times, surreal, Exile is a moving and shocking chronicle of Taslima Nasrin’s struggles in India over a period of five months, set against a rising tide of fundamentalism and intolerance that will resonate powerfully with the present sociopolitical scenario.

A Memoir

Ve Andhere Din

Nirvasan

Malayalam translation of Taslima Nasrin's French Lover. It is the story of Nilanjana, a young Bengali woman from Kolkata who moves to Paris after her marriage to Kishanlal, a restaurant owner.A woman's search for love and independence in a strange city. The mental conflict that takes place between two cultures, even when two persons are in love, has been beautifully captured in the novel. Taslima effortlessly describes an independent-minded character who declares independence from a patriarch (male chauvinist?) she loves who claims dominance over a woman and her womb. As in her other books, a woman's proclamation of personal independence is the main theme of "French Lover.""

Taslima Nasrin

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