Book Reviews Apala Bhowmick The Aunt Who Wouldn’t Die (John Murray, 2019), by Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay, translated from the original Bangla by Arunava Sinha, is a fast-paced thriller about the rescue mission around the flagging finances of an erstwhile-affluent Bengali family who open a shop in the city that sells sarees. The narrators consist of three women of different generations of the family, lending the plot a delightful tripartite divide. It is a tale about the tenacity of the human spirit to withstand hardships and about human relationships that endure. This translation—of a difficult text to translate—possesses the rare quality of being appealing to both the English-speaking reader and to the audience who can understand the Bengali language. I’ve had a chance to read the original Bengali text as well, and the work has been successfully transferred, cultural flavor and all, into a rather curt and mercantile language like English. Speaking of mercantilism, the reader will be afforded a sidelong glance at upper-middle-class Bengali sentiments, at least at a certain point in the history of this community, toward professions like the merchant’s or the petit bourgeois shopkeeper’s. Words like shaashuri and Pishima have been retained, and the name Chakor Mitra, which the reader will encounter on the very first page, is phonetically funny but also funny when you know the implications of the first name when it’s used as a noun in... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2020-03-10 15:47:11 UTC ]
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Amazon is planning to take a Charles Dickens approach to publishing with the launch of fiction in... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-09-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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American science fiction writer Harry Harrison, best known for The Stainless Steel Rat and the book that inspired Charlton Heston's classic film Soylent Green, has died aged 87. Continue reading at BBC News
[ BBC News | 2012-08-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Apple has held talks with the organisers of the Women's Prize for Fiction with a view to... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-08-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Best-selling Irish author Maeve Binchy, who sold more than 40 million books worldwide, has died after a short illness. Continue reading at BBC News
[ BBC News | 2012-07-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The rise of ebooks will "fundamentally change" the types of stories that are written and who they are written by, award-winning author Denise Mina predicts. Continue reading at BBC News
[ BBC News | 2012-07-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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US publishers' sales of ebooks more than doubled in 2011, meaning that the digital book is... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-07-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Donald Sobol, author of the beloved children's book series "Encyclopedia Brown," died Wednesday in Miami. He was 87. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-07-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Fiction Uncovered will be running a four-day pop-up radio station, Fiction Uncovered FM at Foyles... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-06-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Historical novelist Barry Unsworth, who won the Booker Prize in 1992 for his novel about the 18th... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-06-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Jean Craighead George was a leading writer of novels about nature for young readers. One of her best-known works was the Newbery Medal-winning 'Julie of the Wolves.' After children's author Jean Craighead George revealed that she wanted to write a book about a girl who talks with wolves,... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-05-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A title from crowd-sourcing publisher Unbound has been chosen for Fiction Uncovered’s... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-05-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Orange will not renew its title sponsorship of The Women's Prize for Fiction after this year... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-05-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Octogenarian Israeli author Aharon Appelfeld has won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-05-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Phoenix Yard Books, which launched in 2011, is to expand its fiction publishing in 2013 with... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-05-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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'We do not collect erotica,' says one staff member at a library where the books will not be stocked. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2012-05-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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American writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak, author of the classic children's book Where the Wild Things Are, has died at the age of 83. Continue reading at Stuff
[ Stuff | 2012-05-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Maurice Sendak, the US author of the best-selling children's book Where the Wild Things Are, dies aged 83. Continue reading at BBC News
[ BBC News | 2012-05-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The enduringly popular children's book illustrator and writer radically changed the genre with tales of outsized monsters and frolicsome humor that tapped into the fears of childhood. He also collaborated on numerous operas, films and TV programs.Maurice Sendak, the children's book illustrator... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-05-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Raintree has acquired the first titles for its fledgling fiction list, Curious Fox, from Fiction... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-05-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The late Manning Marable won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for history, honored for a Malcolm X book. But no Pulitzer Prize was awarded for fiction. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2012-04-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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