It is that time of the year when you wake up to grey clouds and heavy rain pouring outside your window! Now is perhaps the best time to spend a lousy morning sipping on some hot tea and reading a good book.
Here is a list of three books written by south-east authors to relish your souls:
Inner State by Mohammad Shafiqul Islam
Inner state is a collection of poems that came out in Ekushe Boi Mela 2020. The author, Mohammad Shafiqul Islam is an English Literature Professor at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology. He is renowned for his previous work in ‘Wings of Winds’ and for translating some of the most prominent works of Humayun Ahmed In this book, he explored the plaguing issues of the modern world and portrayed the devastating effects that they leave on human lives. Some of the prominent issues that are recurring throughout his poems are of poverty, class inequality, climate change and warfare. We can also find a few personal poems on love, nostalgia, anxiety, identity and existential crisis in the collection. The book is a modern poetic take on a chaotic world with splashes of silence and beauty.
Purchase book here:https://www.rokomari.com/book/196864/inner-state
Kashmir’s Untold Story by Iqbal Chand & Maroof Raza
Written by two journalists (former soldiers), the story unravels the torturous accounts of Jammu and Kashmir. It provides the readers with riveting accounts on the history of this region, the different political agendas and conflicts that exist to date and the compelling arguments regarding their future state. We are taken back to the time 1940’s around the time of Partition and Independence of India. Iqbal Chand and Maroof Raza delve deeper into why has this state of siege in the Kashmir valley has continued for 72 years since the Partition of India to the present- day India? Although the book fails to add the broader narrative of the past and presence, it still sets the readers with the gruesome reality of power over a beautiful place.
Purchase book here:https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/kashmirs-untold-story-9789388912853/
Floydian by Milu Aman
Writer Milu Aman blends the history of the psychedelic rock band Pink Floyd with his recollections from growing up in an era of cassettes and CD players. This 95 page cannot be considered as a definite biography of the iconic band but rather focuses on a generation that can be considered as he termed, ‘Floydian’ that he coined in his book. We look about the eminent presence of music that shaped their way and views on life.
Purchase book here: https://www.rokomari.com/book/180262/floydian
