Eka Ebang Kayekjan by Sunil Gangopadhyay [Hardcover]

This novel begins a few years before World War II. The curtain is about to rise; soon, explosions will start. Against the backdrop of the final chapter of India’s independence movement, the August Movement of 1942, the fall of the Allied Forces in the Far East, and the British government's retreat from Assam and East Bengal, two teenagers are growing up. One is named Badal, and the other is Surya. One plays the role of a spectator, unable to relate to anything around him, while the other is dynamic and intense, unafraid to leap into fire. They both navigate through famine, the most brutal riots in history, and the independence that followed the partition of India. In this novel, Sunil Gangopadhyay not only depicts the turbulent historical backdrop but also creates a vivid procession of living human beings—whose desires, heartaches, and deaths make them even larger than the historical context itself.