A Memento

Sanyat Sattar

Omlan Alor Boloye Tumi Robe Chirodin
(Kawsar Hussain Memorial Volume)
Department of English, Jahangirnagar University; February 2004

The Department of English, Jahangirnagar University, took the initiative of publishing this resourceful volume on Kawsar Hussain. The volume compiles a number of essays, stories, poems and reminiscences written by eminent writers and personalities of our country including Dr. Zillur Rahman Siddique, Monsur Musa, Dr. Sirajul Islam and Abu Taher Majumder. All these writings are dedicated to the fond memory of Kawsar Hussain, who died in a tragic road accident two years back. Few unpublished write-ups of late writer have been included in this volume.

Italo Calvino: Journey Toward Postmodernism
Constance Markey
University Press of Florida; December 1999
This book is a tribute to the famous Italian writer Italo Calvino. Constance Markey, who knew Calvino personally, correlates details of his life with the growth of his thinking and artistry, using summaries and analysis of his novels, short stories, and essays to underscore the link between his life and work. Though Calvino chronicled uncommon events during a turbulent era, Markey shows that his writing evolved in a consistent, unified, and logical way. Markey also examines his ties to other authors such as Conrad, Beckett, Borges, Kafka, and even Twain. She establishes Calvino's influence as a major force in the shaping of 20th-century literature and offers a persuasive account of postmodernism.

William Blake and the Impossible History of the 1790s
Saree Makdisi
University of Chicago Press; April 2003

According to Makdisi, Blake's poetry and drawings should compel us to seriously reconsider the history of the 1790s -- the turbulent and revolutionary decade in which they first emerged. Tracing for the first time the many links among economics, politics and religion in his work, Makdisi shows how Blake questioned and even subverted the commercial, consumerist and political liberties that his contemporaries championed, all while developing his own radical aesthetic. Indeed a commendable effort by Makdisi, who really tries to understand this 18th Century poet in a whole new way.