Hunger – Dhruba Jyoti Borah

Thus begins this parable-like story by acclaimed Assamese novelist Dr Dhruba Jyoti Borah, a pragmatic response to Nikolai Gogol, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Knut Hamsun. Written in Assamese in the early 1980s, and available in English for the first time, this sparkling translation narrates the story of Farman — a landless farmer in an unnamed ‘char’ in lower Assam. His doomed search for a livelihood leads him on a perilous road — the proverbial point of no return.

Told in a sparse and unadorned language and with single-minded focus on Farman’s fate, Hunger is the Biblical Book of Job set in a godless world where every man is unto himself, destined for self-destruction.