''Agunpakhi'' (English: The Phoenix) is a novel by

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

i writer

Hasan Azizul Huq Hasan Azizul Huq (2 February 1939 – 15 November 2021) was a Bangladeshi short-story writer and novelist. He was awarded Ekushey Padak in 1999, Bangla Academy Literary Award in 1970 and Independence Award in 2019. Early life and education Huq ...

. First published in 2006, the novel was awarded

Prothom Alo ''The Daily Prothom Alo'' ( bn, প্রথম আলো) is a daily newspaper in Bangladesh, published from Dhaka in the Bengali language. It is the largest circulated newspaper in Bangladesh. According to National Media Survey 2018, conducte ...

book of the year prize in 2007 and

Ananda Purashkar The Ananda Puraskar () is an award for Bengali literature awarded annually by the ABP Group to writers using Bengali, usually from West Bengal, India. History The award can be traced to a comment by Annada Shankar Ray ruing the absence of litera ...

in 2008.

Plot summary

''Agunpakhi'' is set in rural

Rarh Rarh region () is a toponym for an area in the Indian subcontinent that lies between the Chota Nagpur Plateau on the West and the Ganges Delta on the East. Although the boundaries of the region have been defined differently according to various ...

, now in

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...

, of early twentieth century. It chronicles a rural family's ups and downs. The story is told by a country housewife in first person narrative. The story begins a score years before the

Partition of India The Partition of British India in 1947 was the Partition (politics), change of political borders and the division of other assets that accompanied the dissolution of the British Raj in South Asia and the creation of two independent dominions: ...

. She makes a powerful observation of herself and people around her. Through her eyes, we see the way of life of the then Rarh region. In the early part of the novel, she mostly speaks of life within the family: births, deaths, marriages. Their fortunes blossom as they become the largest landowner in the area. But as World War II breaks out, they get hit by cholera, shortages, crop failure, and finally the trauma of Hindu-Muslim division. With these events, the story transcends its domestic confinement. The narrator comments on her world being consumed by a divisiveness that had nothing to do with their lives. At the end of the novel, her children set for Pakistan, and later they ask their parents to join them. Her husband agrees, but she refuses to go. Her decision to stay back alone astonishes her husband. In answer to her husband's question, “When did you learn so much?” she says, “All these years I've only learned what you taught me and I've only said what you had me say. Now though, I've learned one or two things on my own.”

References

{{reflist Bengali-language novels 2006 novels Historical novels Novels set in West Bengal Bangladeshi books Bengali-language literature Bangladeshi novels