Rummana Chowdhury reads from her new book, "Dusk in the Frog Pond and Other Stories."
In Dusk in the Frog Pond, Rummana Chowdhury presents new narratives about the lived realities of Muslim women as they navigate life, be it in Bangladesh, on the shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto or along the riotous waves of the Atlantic in New York. These eight powerful stories follow a series of intrepid Bangladeshi women as they confront the issues of migration, displacement, nostalgia, cultural assimilation, marriage and—above all—identity and loneliness. Despite the challenges facing them, these compelling characters seek out happiness, whether in arranged marriages, romantic relationships or in shaping their individual destinies. Each tale is a depiction of the tensions, active as well as simmering, between culture, tradition and history and the modern world. The collection is a compendium of both joy and sorrow, never forgetting the eternally burning fire of hope that lives and dies within all of us.
“Rummana Chowdhury has carefully crafted the short stories in this book. The emotions of women, the Liberation War of Bangladesh, the dilemma of diaspora and many other sentiments have been expressed with her lucid pen. Really worth reading!”
—Nashid Kamal, academic, author, singer
“Dusk in the Frog Pond and Other Stories makes a thoughtful contribution to the growing literary collective of immigrant women’s experiences, as well as adding a new facet to the substantial creative output of Rummana Chowdhury. These provocative stories follow Bangladeshi women as they navigate their roles and responsibilities as wives and mothers, through cultural displacement, psychological trauma and more, as they seek personal fulfilment and some control over their own destinies.”
—Kathleen M. O’Connell, author of Rabindranath Tagore: The Poet as Educator
https://www.inanna.ca/product/dusk-in-the-frog-pond-and-other-stories/
