{"title":"Manzu Islam","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"godzilla-and-the-song-bird-book-manzu-islam-9781845235871","title":"Godzilla and the Song Bird","description":"Set in the period before and through the Bangladeshi war of independence, this novel has at its heart the continuing friendship between three boys with a love of cinema, whose loyalty into adulthood has surprising outcomes. Bulbul, the central character, is a journalist who witnesses and experiences the clash between individual struggles for meaning in a world torn apart by war, genocide and religious exclusions.This is a novel that has everything: tenderness, humour, sadness, satire, horror, tension and release. Scene after scene of brilliant storytelling drives the narrative, revealing truths about the difficult emergence of a postcolonial society and reflecting on the nature of storytelling as a characteristic of Bengali culture - a double-edged one because stories can both evade and uncover buried secrets.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49942137930001,"sku":"NGR9781845235871","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50772535509265,"sku":"GOR014066078","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50913539096849,"sku":"GOR014119135","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1845235878.jpg?v=1751429974"},{"product_id":"song-of-our-swampland-book-manzu-islam-9781845231705","title":"The Song of our Swampland","description":"Staring into the hideous face of evil and illustrating the fragility of courage, this tale centers on Kamal, an East Pakistani who is born without a mouth and tongue. Rescued and educated by Abbas Miah, his village's schoolteacher, he soon learns to keep his ability to read and write a secret from those who condemn him for his disfigurement. When news of West Pakistan's genocidal campaign in the East reaches his village, he hesitates in joining the resistance, bringing to light the gap between how he is perceived by others and his true abilities, which proves both his torment and his salvation. Liberal-minded and pacifist, Abbas Miah soon decides to take his family and a few select villagers into the distant flood plains of Bangladesh to wait out the conflict. Before they can set sail, Miah's wife and hundreds of villagers are slaughtered and the boat instead departs with Kamal, Miah, and a motley crew of survivors. Gritty and heartfelt, this novel explores the capacity for true community amidst a religious obsession with purity and the urgent need to define who is kin in the creation of a new nation state.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50986324230417,"sku":"GOR007763209","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51425923236113,"sku":"GOR014270221","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1845231708.jpg?v=1751217404"},{"product_id":"mapmakers-of-spitalfields-book-manzu-islam-9781900715089","title":"The Mapmakers of Spitalfields","description":"\u003cp\u003e'There are many who date the day he took to walking as the beginning of his madness. But others mark it as the beginning of that other walk when, patiently, and bit by bit, he began tracing the secret blueprint of a new city...'\u003cbr\u003eHe is Brothero-Man, one of the pioneer jumping-ship men, who landed in the East End and lived by bending the English language to the umpteenth degree. He, 'the invisible surveyor of the city' must complete his walk before the mascatchers in white coats intercept him and take him away. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThese stories, set in London's Banglatown and Bangladesh, bring startlingly fresh insights to the experiences of exile and settlement. Written between realism and fantasy, acerbic humour and delicate grace, they explore the lives of exiles and settlers, traders and holy men, transvestite hemp-smoking actors and the leather-jacketed, pool-playing youths who defended Brick Lane from skinhead incursion. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn the title story, Islam makes dazzling use of the metaphor of map-making as Brothero-Man, 'galloping the veins of your city' becomes the collective consciousness of all the settlers inscribing their realities on the parts of Britain they are claiming as their own. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eSyed Manzurul (Manzu) Islam\u003c\/b\u003e was born in 1953 in a small northeastern town in East Pakistan (later Bangladesh). He has a doctorate and was Reader in English at the University of Gloucestershire, specialising in postcolonial literature and creative writing","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50991803236625,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50991804317969,"sku":"GOR001939750","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52692299907345,"sku":"GOR004122474","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1900715082.jpg?v=1751448591"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-manzu-islam.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}