Novel
আনোয়ারা
Not translated into English
Mohammad Najibar Rahman · 1914
Synopsis
Anwara, very beautiful and motherless, grows up in her stepmother's house, where she has no support but her grandmother and her friend Saliha. Married to Nurul Islam, she finds affection with him, but her father's second wife makes her life difficult. The novel follows this household in the Bengali countryside, which the author wishes to present as a model of the Muslim family, and the young woman who bears its burden.
Context
For lack of money, the author could not at first have his book printed: the pupils of the college and madrasa where he taught raised three hundred takas, an unexpected profit in the tobacco trade brought in seven hundred, and it was with this thousand takas that he paid Khan Bahadur Mobarak Ali, owner of the Makhdumi Library. The author's first novel, the book appeared in 1914 in four hundred pages and portrayed rural Muslim families, who then occupied little space in the Bengali novel. Zahir Raihan adapted it for the screen.
Who it is for
Four hundred pages in an elevated language, often read today in an abridged version; the edifying purpose is openly embraced.
Prizes and reception
Twenty-eight reprints up to 1965 and more than seven hundred thousand copies sold; after Bishad Sindhu, the most widely read book of Bengali Muslim literature.