by Jibanananda Das (Author), Rebecca Whittington (Translator)
Malloban is set in North Calcutta in the winter of 1929. The eponymous protagonist, a lower-middle-class office worker, lives in College Street-a locality known for its bookstores, publishing houses, and universities-with his wife Utpala and their daughter Monu. The novel unfolds through a series of everyday scenes of dysfunction and discontent: bickering about bathrooms and budgeting, family trips to the zoo and the movies, a visit from Utpala's brother's family which displaces Malloban to a boarding house, and the appearance of a frequent late-night visitor to Utpala's upstairs bedroom. Meanwhile, the daughter Monu bears the brunt of her parents' unlove.
Arguably the most beloved poet in modern Bangla after Tagore, Jibanananda wrote a significant number of novels and short stories discovered and published after his death. Malloban is his most popular novel.
Author Biography
Jibanananda Das (Author)
Jibanananda Das was an indian poet, writer, novelist and essayist in the Bengali language. Popularly called 'Rupashi Banglar Kabi', Das is the most read poet after Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam in Bangladesh and West Bengal.
Rebecca Whittington (b. 1987) is a PhD student in the Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include Tamil and Bengali modern literature, comparative literature, literary modernism, and translation studies.