Noted Assamese writer Arupa Patangia Kalita won the Sahitya Akademi award for her book “Mariam Austin othoba Hira Barua” and this engrossing collection of stories has now been published in English.
In these intimate portraits, women navigate family, violence, trauma, ambition and domesticity with caution, grace and a quiet resilience.
According to the Sahitya Akademi, these short stories reflected the humanitarian outlook and sincerity of the author and her lucid style of writing and the suggestiveness in the language are remarkable in themselves.
It termed the collection as an important contribution to the genre of Indian fiction in Assamese.
Written in a variety of styles, from gritty social realism, folklore to magical realism, the stories in “The Loneliness of Hira Barua” have been translated into English by Ranjita Biswas. Among the many tales is the one…