Shahidul Zahir(1953–2008) completed his post-graduation at the University of Dhaka andthe American University, Washington, D.C., and joined the civil servicesin Bangladesh. He is best known for his novella, Jibon O Rajnoitik Bastobota (1987). Shahidul Zahir's oeuvre includes the short story collections Parapar (1985), Dumurkheko Manush O Onyanno Golpo (2000), and Dolu Nodir Haowa O Onyanno Golpo (2004), the novels Shey Raate Purnima Chhilo (1995) and Mukher Dike Dekhi (2006), and the novella Abu Ibrahimer Mrityu (2009). “ V. RAMASWAMY lives in Kolkata. He is engaged in a multi-volume project to translate the short fiction of Subimal Misra. The Golden Gandhi Statue from America: Early Stories, published in 2010, was shortlisted for the Vodafone Crossword Book Award. He was awarded the Sarai Fellowship for Non-fiction Writing in 2013.“
<p>Born in 1953 in Old Dhaka, Shahidul Zahir published only six works in his short life – but these are some of the most unique and powerful works of fiction to have come out of the subcontinent, blending surrealism, folklore, oral storytelling traditions, magic realism, a searing understanding of social and political reality, and rare clarity of vision. I See the Face is an alternative telling of the story, or history, of Bangladesh, beginning with the War of Liberation in 1971. Moving effortlessly from the past to the present, and back again, Zahir paints a picture of the crisis of post-independence Bangladesh and describes how society or the State drives a poor but brilliant boy to destruction. There is biting wit and humour, and above all, a kind of ethereal understatement which make the reading experience an incomparable one. With I See the Face, Shahidul Zahir surpasses himself.</p><div><br></div>
