A Golden Age

Product Information

Do not expect to learn a lot about the Bangladesh War, Bangladesh People or its culture from this book, you will have a small idea about those after you read the book, but the book in whole is a novel about Rehana and her family! Maya: Rehana's daughter, university student, moves to Kolkata to be a journalist for the freedom fighters. This is the first in Anam's Bengal trilogy, which follows the fortunes of Rehana's children and grandchildren after the war, and I look forward to the next volume, The Good Muslim.

A widow, Rehana, is the central character, suddenly having to navigate revolutionary children, a sudden turn against Bengali nationalism, and an opportunistic brother in law. Anam has set her story mostly in the revolution that saw Bengal split from Pakistan to become Bangladesh. I've had this book since I found it on paperbackswap in 2012, so it's been on my shelf for a while too. When her children were small and she first became a widow, Rehana lost custody of them and went to great lengths to get them back. And as she struggles to keep her family safe, Rehana will be forced to face a heartbreaking dilemma.

Rehana's neighbors and many of the other minor characters are sharply drawn and their stories are intertwined with those of Rehana and her children. Modern Bangladesh emerged as an independent nation in 1971 after breaking away and achieving independence from Pakistan in the Bangladesh Liberation War. In her fierce love and desperate need to keep them safe, she is willing to consider some unholy alliances and has to make difficult choices.

The book starts with the death of Rehana's husband and losing then regaining the custody of her children, and then fast forwards to the start of the war where Rehana struggles again to hold on to her children. Rehana is a wonderful character, loving but flawed, and gifted with depths and strengths I would never have expected in the early part of the the book.It also effectively illustrates the strength of maternal love, and the lengths a woman will go to to protect her children. As a Muslim woman and mother caught in the midst of a violent conflict, Rehana reminded me of the main character in The Woman from Tantoura, Ruqayya, so I could not help finding this book less impressive than Ashour's superlative novel, although it is certainly affecting and expressive. I could smell the greasy food, feel the oppressive heat, hear the endlessly cascading rain, and see the red and white flowers Rehana grows in her garden.