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Books About Bangladesh

These and other books about Bangladesh may be ordered from: 


Songs at the River's Edge - Stories from a Bangladeshi Village 

Katy Gardner, 1997. Pluto Press. 164 pp. Hardcover. The first edition was published by Virago and has been out of print since 1993. USD39.95 from Barnes & Noble. To order this book online from Barnes&Noble, visit http://bicn.com/fwd/fwd2bnbook001.htm .

"Fascinating and full of detail, this story of Katy Gardner's life in a Bangladeshi village accessible and easy to read at many different levels. For anthropologists, it provides an essential account of starting research in someone else's society. For pleasure, it reads as a fine novel, and as a piece of travel writing, it is evocative and absorbing. Katy Gardner writes about the friends she made, the characters she met, the rituals she witnessed, about Islam as practiced in that village and about women living in purdah. She writes about trying, as a Western woman, to live the life of the village women. Her book is alive and memorable." 


Living in the Fringe

By Gilles Saussier, assisted by Shah Alam Manik. ISBN 2-9512665-0-2. 137 pp. Cost Tk1950. Available from Mr Kashem's Rickshaw Books

Clearly the product of a passionate interest in the people of Bangladesh, and of extraordinary gifts for photographic portraiture and landscape photography as well. Gorgeous without being slick, the photographs and text work together to communicate the strength and dignity of the people of the fringe areas of Bangladesh, and the beauty of the harsh landscape in which they struggle to survive. From the forward by F.H. Ahbed, founder executive director BRAC.: "[Gille presents] photographed close-ups of people living in the fringe areas of Bangladesh, on the riverbed chars, in the haor basin, on the newly emerged lands of the Bay of Bengal. He does so with brief chronicles that at once give the reader authentic insights into their trials and tribulations, their dreams and hopes. ... By documenting their lives Gilles ... give[s] these people a face, a dignity, and an identity that they, on their own, so richly deserve." 


Expatriate Games

by Mark Trenowden.  Minerva Press 270pp. 198x129mm.  Paperback.  GBP12.99.  ISBN: 0754111016.  http://www.btintenet.com/~cricketboy/expat.htm

From the publisher: "A true story of the hardships, frustrations and fun experienced by a foreigner setting up home in Bangladesh, where making a simple telephone call is a ten-act drama and, blighted by a lethargic, bureaucratic environment, every day has its stresses. Whether you are a seasoned expat, soon to be posted abroad or just an armchair explorer, there will be plenty to entertain, terrify, and amuse you here. "

"...[D]escribes the visit to Bangladesh by the eponymous expatriates, an English/Canadian couple sent out on a two-year posting to work in the country.  The work describes their efforts to go native, and the degree to which they achieve it.  This means adjustment to a whole new way of doing business.

"The author's look at the country is both critical and sympathetic, any exasperation accompanied by a willingness to see people as individuals and to swallow any distaste one might feel towards practices of which one disapproves, over and above the necessity to get along.  This is a factor that makes one sense that the author's look at his subject has been a fair one.

"The book is greatly enjoyable, readable and informative.   The story ... offers a sympathetic portrait not only of a different country and its people but also the universals of human existence and interaction with which anyone [can] identify."


Birds of the Indian Subcontinent

By Richard Grimmet, Carol Inskipp, and Tim Inskipp. Delhi Oxford University Press. 1998. Tk3375. Hardback, pp888, many color plates. Available from Mr Kashem's Rickshaw Books

For the serious subcontinental birder! R Grimmett was artist for Guide to the Bird's of Nepal and coauthor of Birdlife's Important Bird Areas of Europe. Founder chairman Oriental Bird Club founded 1984, currently works for BirdLife International in Indonesia, has managed conservation programmes in Europe & Asia. Carol Inskipp is coauthor of Guide to the Birds of Nepal (1985) and An Introduction to Birdwatching in Bhutan (1995), and author of Birdwatcher's Guide to Nepal (1988). Tim Inskipp is Editor of Forktail, the journal of the OBC, and coauthor of Guide to the Birds of Nepal and Annotated Checklist of the Birds of the Oriental Region, now at World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Cambridge.


Bideshi Baburchi II

By Kim Gregory. About Tk150.  Spiral bound with separators by topic.  Available from Mr Kashem's Rickshaw Books

Over 200 recipes in English and Bengali. A complete revision of Bideshi Baburchi, the popular original English/Bengali cookbook. 


Pabitra Baibel - The Bible in Bengali Common Language, Old and New Testaments

Bangladesh Bible Society (BBS) new 1998 translation, common non-Muslim dialect Bengali.  About Tk150.  Available from Mr Kashem's Rickshaw Books

An alternative to other,  more difficult translations based on the original Carey translation dating to the early 1800s. 


Injil Sharif - The New Testament in Common Language Muslim Dialect Bengali 

BBS 1998. About Tk150. Available from Mr Kashem's Rickshaw Books

The Taurat Sharif (Pentateuch, ie Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) and the Jabur Sharif (Psalms) may also be available in Muslim dialect Bengali common language BBS translations.


Manderangni Jagring - Images of the Garos in Bangladesh

Introduction by Ellen Bal, photos by Yasuhiro Takami, commentary by Johannes Sandgren, coordinated by Pakhara Cultural Association, publication grant from the Royal Netherlands Embassy. UPL 1999, 99pp, many black & white photos. Tk500. Available from Mr Kashem's Rickshaw Books

Through text and pictures the book introduces the present-day Garos of Bangladesh, a people indigenous to the hills of Meghalaya and the plains of northern Bangladesh.