I See The Face by Zahir, Shahidul/Ramaswamy, V.

Shahidul Zahir(1953–2008) completed his post-graduation at the University of Dhaka andthe American University, Washington, D.C., and joined the civil servicesin Bangladesh. He is best known for his novella, Jibon O Rajnoitik Bastobota (1987). Shahidul Zahir’s oeuvre includes the short story collections Parapar (1985), Dumurkheko Manush O Onyanno Golpo (2000), and Dolu Nodir Haowa O Onyanno Golpo (2004), the novels Shey Raate Purnima Chhilo (1995) and Mukher Dike Dekhi (2006), and the novella Abu Ibrahimer Mrityu (2009).

V. Ramaswamy has translated Subimal Misra’s The Golden Gandhi Statue from America: Early Stories, Wild Animals Prohibited: Stories, Anti-Stories, This Could Have Become Ramayan Chamar’s Tale: Two Anti-Novels, and The Earth Quakes: Late Anti-Stories; Shahidul Zahir’s Life and Political Reality: Two Novellas (with Shahroza Nahrin), Why There Are No Noyontara Flowers in Agargaon Colony: Stories, and I See the Face: A Novel; Manoranjan Byapari’s novels The Runaway Boy and The Nemesis; and Memories of Arrival: A Voice from the Margins by Adhir Biswas. He was a recipient of the Literature Across Frontiers–Charles Wallace India Trust fellowship in creative writing and translation at Aberystwyth University in 2016, the New India Foundation translation fellowship in 2022, the PEN Presents award in 2022, and the Bangla Translation Foundation (Dhaka) prize for the best translated book of 2022. He lives in Kolkata.