Scroll.in features Kitaab's upcoming anthology of Bengali poems from India and Bangladesh

New Release from Kitaab includes a poetry collection, translated by Rajat Chaudhuri.

Kitaab recently launched The Great Bengali Poetry Underground – Translated by Rajat Chaudhuri featuring 10 poets.

Rajat Chaudhuri has published six books – Butterfly Effect, Calcutta Nights (translation) Hotel Calcutta, The Best Asian Speculative Fiction (ed), Calculus (in Bengali) and Amber Dusk. He is the Charles Wallace Creative Writing Fellow (2014) at the University of Chichester, United Kingdom, Hawthornden Castle Fellow (2015) and a Korean Arts Council Fellow (2013) at Toji Cultural Centre, South Korea. Chaudhuri is a past Fellow of the Sangam House International Writers Residency.

With 100 poems translated in the book, the featured poets include Agni Roy, Novera Hossain, Mitul Dutta, Tanmay Mridha, Atanu Chakrabortty, Gouranga Mondal, Shapla Shawparjita, Pratyush Bandopadhyay, Aysa Jhorna and Arpan Chakraborty.

The blurb of the book reads:

Hundred poems, ten poets, two countries, one language …
In the pages of Bengali little magazines of India and Bangladesh and the obscure recesses of an ever-vibrant literary culture, spring other voices, other words – another art of seeing. Hidden from the glare of mainstream writing and often ignored in the portals of high culture, secret wizards of verse are chiselling away at experience, conjuring up the poetry of a stricken time. A poetry which genuflects before no one while delivering its irreverent message in whispers or cat alls. The subterranean chambers of Bengali underground poetry echo with angst and experiment, glow in the blurry heat of passion or slip into a meditative silence as it plumbs the depths of the heart. This collection trawls the darkest corners of the Bengali literary universe offering to English language readers, the first glimpse of an uncharted ocean – its winds, storms and unstoppable tides.

Scroll.in hosts an exclusive excerpt from the book, saying,

This collection, curated and translated by Rajat Chaudhuri, brings together work from ‘the turbulent undercurrents of Bengali verse-writing’..

You can read the whole excerpt HERE.

The book is available at Kitaab Store.

About Author

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Namrata is a published author who enjoys writing stories and think pieces on travel, relationships, and gender. She is a UEA alumnus and has studied travel writing at the University of Sydney.

She is also an independent editor and a book reviewer. Her writings can be found on various sites and magazines like the Asian Review of Books, Contemporary South Asia Journal of King’s College-London, Mad in Asia, The Friday Times, Daily Star, The Scroll, Feminism in India, The Brown Orient Journal, Inkspire Journal, Moonlight Journal, The Same, Chronic Pain India and Cafe Dissensus.

Her short stories have been a part of various anthologies . She has also published two short story collections of her own along with two solo titles as well. She is currently working on her debut novel. She loves travelling the length and breadth of the world and enjoys capturing the magic of life in her words. She is always in pursuit of a new country and a new story.

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