Chilekothar Sepai

Chilekothar Sepai is Akhteruzzaman Elias’s novel about the lead up to the 1969 mass uprising in East Pakistan, the political moment that pushed Bangladesh toward Liberation. The book is set in old Dhaka and centres on Osman, a clerk who lives in a rooftop room and watches history move past his window.

It is a serious, demanding book. Many readers consider it the finest novel ever written in Bangladesh, and the prose rewards every slow chapter.