Bengal Hound

BENGAL HOUND
by Rahad Abir
9781958652022
$19.00 / Paperback / 5.5” x 8.5" / 228 pages
Gaudy Boy, October 1, 2023
N. America: Bookshop / Amazon
Singapore: Word Image
Distributed by Ingram

Highlighted in The Daily Star’s 2023 Books in Review

“A story full of gravity and urgency.”
—Ha Jin, author of A Song Everlasting

A love story unravels in the tumultuous years leading up to the war for Bangladeshi Independence, revealing the irreconcilable fissures of land and life.

About

A city is hellbent on revolution. Passionate and impetuous, Shelley Majumder is a university student at a time of political discord in Dhaka in the late 1960s. Frustrated by the oppression of West Pakistani rulers, the Bengali people are rising up, taking Shelley with them. As he is forced to navigate the chaos of an uprising, where his every choice and action weighs heavy with consequence, Shelley’s life is thrown further into disarray when he elopes with his childhood sweetheart, Roxana, a Muslim girl from his village, sparking a chain of events reflecting the turbulent relationship between Hindus and Muslims that quickly spins out of control.

At its very core a story of love and loss, Bengal Hound traces the turbulent years of East Pakistan that led to a mass revolution, eventually culminating in the creation of Bangladesh. Rahad Abir conjures up characters haunted by memory and trauma in a society reeling from the pains of the Partition of British India. A powerful exploration of the dynamics of nationalism, family, religion, and gender relations, Bengal Hound reveals how the fracturing and making of countries leave indelible marks on its people.

Author

Rahad Abir is a writer from Bangladesh. His work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Witness, The Los Angeles Review, Himal Southasian, Courrier International, The Wire, and elsewhere. He has an MFA in fiction from Boston University. He is the recipient of the Charles Pick Fellowship at the University of East Anglia and the Marguerite McGlinn Prize for Fiction. His work has been translated into French and Hindi. Currently he is working on a short story collection, which was a finalist for the 2021 Miami Book Fair Emerging Writer Fellowship. He lives in Georgia, USA.

Praise

"Bizarre and surreal, Bengal Hound follows the novelistic convention of bringing news of the world, telling a rich, engaging story. This novel describes how the human condition, specifically the Bangladeshis', are randomly and mysteriously shaped by politics, religions, and the weight of customs and prejudices. It is a story full of gravity and urgency." 
—Ha Jin, author of A Song Everlasting

“Every page of Bengal Hound contains two or three granular details about place and people and the intricate and often messy relationships that arise between them. Meticulously imagined, tautly written, and heartbreaking, Rahad Abir's first novel marks the beginning of an auspicious career.”
—Dale Peck, the author of Night Soil and What Burns

"Impressive. . . . Perhaps too many histories jostle within the 13 chapters of the novel, and rightfully so because East Pakistan cannot be understood from one angle. . . . A daring initiative. . . . Bangladeshi Anglophone writers have invested in delineating the 1971 war, but few novels . . . portray in some detail the crisis of the Hindu minority. Abir does excellent work focusing on this less explored topic in Bangladesh’s English literature."
—Asif Iqbal, Free Voice

"Set amid a charged atmosphere of escalating political violence, the story's main focus is the more intimate yet just as devastating tragedy of lost love. . . . Bengal Hound is a novel about becoming trapped within boundaries that are too big for any one person to break through."
—Foreword Review

"There is not a single character in Bengal Hound who does not correspond, in some way or another, to the desperation and fire consuming the country. There is madness and bloodthirst in every heart, and every page of the book is soaked through...there is no denying the importance of such a work...A tragic but touching work of literature."
—Sarazeen Saif Ahana, The Daily Star