Book Info
Dreams’ Navel provides an interdisciplinary exploration of Akhtaruzzaman Elias’s Khwabnama, a monumental work of Bengali modernist fiction. This collection of essays examines how the novel enriches official nationalist histories of Bangladesh and the 1947 Partition. By attending to the ‘minutiae of locality’—the marshes, myths, and memories of rural North Bengal —contributors from anthropology, literature, and political science demonstrate Elias’s unique ability to weave the oneiric and the magical into historical experience. The volume offers fresh reflections on subaltern agency, gendered domesticity, and the evocative sensory world of the Bengali rural landscape. Dreams’ Navel provides a transformative vantage on a classic text, positioning Elias not just within the Bengali canon, but as a vital and provocative voice in global conceptual inquiry. This scholarly tribute is essential for readers seeking to understand the enduring power of Elias’s literary imagination and its resonance in the postcolonial world.
Firdous Azim
Firdous Azim is Professor of English at BRAC University in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She has published widely on literary, cultural and women’s issues both inside and outside the country. Her critical writings include The Colonial Rise of the Novel (1993), as well as contributions on postcolonial and women’s writings in journals and edited anthologies. She is a founding member of Naripokkho, a women’s activist group in Bangladesh.
Naveeda Khan
Naveeda Khan is Professor of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University, where she is affiliated with Women, Gender, Sexuality; Islamic Studies; Environmental Science and Studies; and the Department of Comparative Thought and Literature. Her publications include In Quest of a Shared Planet: Negotiating Climate from the Global South (2023), River Life and the Upspring of Nature (2022), and Muslim Becoming: Aspiration and Skepticism in Pakistan (2012).
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