Description
Translated from the Assamese by Shantana Saikia
Part of Red River Story Series edited by Sucharita Dutta-Asane
Farman is intimately familiar with these pangs of hunger. Since his childhood. Hunger and he are old companions. Now he can discern the signs of hunger without a doubt.
Thus begins this parable-like story by acclaimed Assamese novelist Dr Dhruba Jyoti Borah, a pragmatic response to Nikolai Gogol, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Knut Hamsun. Written in Assamese in the early 1980s, and available in English for the first time, this sparkling translation narrates the story of Farman — a landless farmer in an unnamed ‘char’ in lower Assam. His doomed search for a livelihood leads him on a perilous road — the proverbial point of no return.
Told in a sparse and unadorned language and with single-minded focus on Farman’s fate, Hunger is the Biblical Book of Job set in a godless world where every man is unto himself, destined for self-destruction.
Early praise for the book
The authenticity of the narrative, the perfectly etched characters and evocative prose with economy of language make this novel a remarkable read.
— Abdullah Khan, author of Patna Blues