How Does One Cook Beans?

Syed Waliullah's collection 'How Does One Cook Beans?' gathers his English originals, his own Bangla translations, and selected stories rendered by other translators. His fiction, rooted in rural Bengal yet spanning varied classes, professions, and temperaments, reflects the quiet intensity of a man both belonging and displaced. Shaped by foreign solitude, memories of riverine Bengal, and existential unease, his narratives carry a distinct depth.

The title story, written under the pseudonym "Abu Sharya" like "The Ugly Asian," stands as his only Paris-set fiction, offering a playfulness absent elsewhere. "I Believe My Son," an autobiographical piece, appears here for the first time. Twelve translated stories include eight from Nayanchara and Dui Teer, plus four unanthologized ones: "Shishu," "Dreams Come Rolling Down," "The Other Wife," and "No, Bubu Doesn't Cry." "Shishu," from 1939, is the earliest. This collection invites both new and longtime readers to see Waliullah as intimate, unguarded, and deeply human.