Hellfire

With the pace of a thriller and the unforgettable characters of Greek tragedy, this keenly observed story of a family under the rule of a terrifying matriarch is one of the most unusual, addictive and captivating novels I've read in a very long time’ ―Tahmima Anam, author of A Golden Age and The Good Muslim

The holy Prophet received his revelations from the Creator at forty. Which meant that even in the eyes of Allah, ‘forty’ held some special meaning. Something special happened at forty, something special was going to happen.

For the sisters Lovely and Beauty, home is a cage. Their mother Farida Khanam never lets them out of her hawk-eyed gaze.

Leesa Gazi’s Hellfire opens with Lovely's first ever solo expedition to Gausia Market on her fortieth birthday. There will be many firsts for her today, but she mustn’t forget the curfew Farida Khanam has ordained. As Lovely roams the streets of Dhaka, her mother’s carefully constructed world begins to unravel. The twisted but working arrangements of a fragile household begin to assume a macabre quality as the day progresses.

Told in stark, taut prose, this grisly tale of a family born of a dark secret is one of the most scintillating debuts in contemporary Bengali literature.

Watch author Leesa Gazi and translator Shabnam Nadiya discuss the act of writing and the act of translation, talk about the many dimensions of Hellfire, and read from Hellfire in Bengali and in English!