In Blissful Hell

In Blissful Hell

byহুমায়ূন আহমেদ

I happened to be one of those fortunate few who went through the Bengali manuscript of Nandita Narake (In Blissful Hell), immediately after it was drafted in the early seventies. Humayun was then a student of Dhaka University doing his post-graduate studies in Chemistry. The novel grows out of a lower middle class family, the focus remaining on Rabeya, the protagonist, who is physically grown up but mentally retarded. Rabeya's dilemma offers an interestesting and convenient episode that the writer handles in a brilliant way. In fact, the novel starts with the theme of sex and adolescence, tolerance and violence, balance and ambivalence and finally unfurls a twilight zone of complex human existence. The novel, soon after its publication, claimed for its creator a place of honour in our literature. The translation of this novel also began some twenty years back. Two young students, Khurshid and Bhuiyan, made the first draft, that I revised from top to bottom and published in one of the issues of the Bangla Academy Journal. The translator was named as Amin Ahmed, who never existed in person. However, I have been amply benefited from that earlier draft while preparing the present version that bears my name as its translator. I am greatly indebted to the novelist himself who went through this version and suggested some changes and corrections. It is because of his collaboration that I competed the work and published it in book form.