Urban History-In Translation-Bangla
By Syed Muhammad Ashraf. Translated from the original Hindi by A. Naseeb Khan
2025
A book which Chotey Mian’s father considers to be ‘just an account of a journey and a few superstitions’, but which becomes an obsession for the young boy, one from which he has to be weaned away by incantation and prayer. Written across generations of the family, it contains accounts of journeys stretching way back into the past including a remarkable encounter between one of his ancestors and the spectre of Timur in Samarkand.
Translated from the original Bangla by Anita Kar in collaboration with John Mackrell. Illustrations by Krishnendu Chaki
2025
The first person, however, has no place in Sripantha’s storytelling about Kolkata. He narrates objectively and knowledgably. In contrast, the personal reminiscences of the authors’ relationship with the city are revived in books like Ashok Mitra’s Calcutta Diary (1977), Amartya Sen’s Calcutta after Independence (2019), Amit Chaudhuri’s Calcutta: Two Years in the City (2013) and Suresh Kohli and KA Abbas’s Evening in Calcutta (2015).