I’ve translated Bangla into English for many years, but it was only in 2006 that I first attempted something literary. During the AWP Conference in Austin, Texas, I’d been asked to read at the University of Texas on International Womens Day. I read an excerpt I translated from the Bangladeshi writer Shaheen Akhtar’s novel Talaash.

There’s some excellent literature from Bangladesh that deserves wider attention. Some translations of short stories are available, but not many novels. Alas, there’s some poor quality translation out there as well. We might well complain that it’s unfair that the novel overshadows other forms, but until our finest novels find their way into strong translations, our writing will not find much response in the outside literary world. I hope that in the coming years this situation will change.

While I translate prose from several authors, I focus my efforts on Mahmudul Haque. He started writing in the 1950s when he was his teens, and within twenty years he had matured into a prose stylist and master of the short novel. He withdrew from writing in the early 1980s, but he left behind quite a remarkable stamp.

• Every Day, One Handkerchief,
  published in Star Literature Eid Special, October 2007, a translation of “Protidin Ekti Rumal,” a Bangla short story by Mahmudul Haque.

Visiting the in-laws with a rusted tin suitcase in one hand and a jackfruit in the other, raising a litter of children, fetching sour pickles for the wife, roaming the footpaths and bazaars for tiny shrimp and cut pieces of fabric — that’s become the grand total of your life’s ideals.

• Torn Wire,
  published in The Daily Star, January 19, 2007, a translation of “Chera Tar,” a Bangla short story by Mahmudul Haque.

  Since I took to walking, I now come across quite a few people around town. I bump into people I haven’t stayed in touch with or seen in twenty or thirty years.