Dwitiyo Innings - er Por

দ্বিতীয় ইনিংসের পর 
Author – Mati Nandi

Genre – Fiction, Bengali

Source - Print

Rating - 4

Read - December 2015

A fine novella; based on test cricket what's more, which doesn't diminish at all on re-reading. Not a classic, not among his greatest, but still a fine piece. Mati Nandi is an expert novelist. I am glad to have re-discovered him.

Nayaker Prabesh o Prasthan

নায়কের প্রবেশ ও প্রস্থান 
Author – Mati Nandi

Genre – Fiction, Bengali

Source - Print

Rating - 5

Read - December 2015

This is an extraordinary piece of work. Remember that piece in 'Interpreter of Maladies', the first one? A Temporary Matter? Of how a quasi-estranged couple speak with each other in the middle of a week-long power-failure? This story, by Mati Nandi, reminded me of that. This is a story of how an entire small lane in Kolkata changes, or just comes to terms with itself, while a celebrity steps in, and then steps out of a building in that lane. This is quite extraordinary storytelling. Needs translation.

CivilWarLand in Bad Decline

Author: George Saunders
Genre: Short stories, novella, dystropian
Source: Print
Rated: 4/5
Read: Feb 2015

Saunders is a magician of the written word. These are superbly well crafted stories, each a decidedly original take on the world around us, and each does the work of holding up a mirror of our world in all is darkest (Bounty, the novella, is a miracle). Where is separates from the later 'Tenth of December', Saunders' masterpiece in my opinion, is that even though dark, somewhere is Tenth is something very hopeful and life-affirming, while all that you will find in Civilwarland is a sense of overwhelming bleakness and hopelessness. The mirror showed such depressing images that sometimes they made this reader want to just close the book and prefer the placebo of turning away.