Novel
Basti
بستی
Intizar Hussain · 1979
Synopsis
Zakir teaches history in Lahore. He keeps returning to Rupnagar, the village in Uttar Pradesh where his childhood was spent, where Hindus and Muslims lived side by side, and to Sabirah, his friend from that time, who stayed in India after 1947 when he left for Pakistan. In 1971, during the war that splits off East Pakistan, he keeps a diary; the narrative mixes memories, letters, dreams and myths, from the Mahabharata to the invasion of Delhi in the eighteenth century.
Context
The novel was published in 1979 in Lahore, by Naqsh-e-Avval Kitab Ghar, and opens a trilogy on the Partition, followed by Aagey Samandar Hai and Naya Ghar. Frances W. Pritchett translated it into English, first in New Delhi in 1995, a translation reissued by New York Review Books in 2012. Some critics saw in it an autobiography more than a novel, and the author acknowledged the parallel with his own life.
Who it is for
In Urdu, translated into English; it helps to know that the 1971 war saw the secession of East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh.
Prizes and reception
Its English translation helped place the author among the finalists for the Man Booker International in 2013.
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