“Essentially, a storyteller writes a story based on their own understanding and experience of what a story is.”- Sadique Hossain (Author, Giya Ali’s Love & His Time Alone)
1 min read
Team Kitaab is in conversation with the author and translator of Giyas Ali’s Love & His Time Alone, stories by Sadique Hossain, translated from the Bengali by Nandini Gupta (The Antonym Collections, 2025)
The short stories in this collection are a riveting exploration of love and desire. The worlds they open are mystical, metaphorical, absolutely surreal, and playful—yet the concerns and questions raised in them are urgent and immediate. Nandini Gupta translates these stories lucidly, rendering Sadique Hossain’s unique voice accessible to a wider audience.
‘The world Sadique creates is not easy to penetrate. Here, Giyas Ali tastes the sound of horse hooves; a mango tree holds a grudge against a village head; dim-witted Bulbul stands inside a grave like a terrible male figure to receive his father’s corpse; a woman rides to a tryst on the back of a black buffalo; Abu Bakar yearns to glide like the seeds of a ripe chili in the juice of Asma’s tongue; and the wealthy and well-connected Julubabu is stuck for eternity beside a pond, pointing his gun at Badal. I hope I have been able to carry across some of the magic of Sadique’s poetry—liberally interspersed with the mundane—beyond the barrier of language.’
Nandini Gupta (Translator)
