Taslima Nasreen's bestseller Lajja to have a sequel: Shameless will be published in January 2020

An English translation of Shameless, the sequel to author Taslima Nasreen's bestselling novel Lajja (Shame), is set to be published by HarperCollins in January 2020. The novel that was originally written in Bengali over a decade ago by the exiled Bangladeshi author never got published until a Hindi translation was recently made available.Nasreen's 1993 novel Lajja is a sharp commentary against the injustices faced by a Hindu family living in Bangladesh following the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Upon its release, the novel was critically acclaimed for its depiction of communal violence and religious intolerance in the author's country of birth.[caption id="attachment_6550421" align="alignnone" width="825"] Author Taslima Nasreen. Image via Wikimedia Commons[/caption]Lajja, an outspoken narrative of the patriarchy, misogyny and power structures prevalent in the country, revolved around the protagonist, Suranjan and his family, and Shameless takes this story forward following their relocation from Bangladesh to Kolkata. The author says, "Have their troubles ended with a change of location? Not at all: for the patriarchy, misogyny, communal disharmony and religious intolerance that hinder humanity are just as prevalent in India as they were in Bangladesh. We cannot escape these traps we set for ourselves by fleeing from one country to another; we need real solutions to these real problems."To be translated from Bengali to English by Arunava Sinha, the book is set to explore what the politics of religion does to human beings and their relationships.[caption id="attachment_6550431" align="alignnone" width="825"] Titles by Taslima Nasreen.[/caption]In 1993, even as Lajja garnered attention for being a poignant tale of caste-based violence, it also received severe backlash from several fundamentalists and was banned in Bangladesh soon after its release. A year later, in 1994, following allegations of vilifying the religion of Islam, Nasreen was forced to flee the country and she spent almost a decade exiled in Europe. To this day, the author has been unable to permanently return to her home in Bangladesh or her residence in West Bengal.During her years spent in Sweden, Germany and the United States, the writer and poet continued her literary pursuits and in the years following the publication of Lajja authored several works including Poems from Exile (1996), French Lover (2002), and Exile (2012).With Shameless, the sequel to one of her most prolific works, Nasreen and Sinha will once again bring to the fore the very issues that the author has vociferously raised through her tumultuous career.