Source : The Tribune
Srinagar, June 24 : HarperCollins India has published Kashmiri writer Feroz Rather’s “The Night of Broken Glass” and touted it as one of the first fiction books on Kashmir dealing with insurgency.
This is also the first book of Rather, who is currently a doctoral student of creative writing at Florida State University.
As per the statement of HarperCollins India, the book provides the readers a glimpse of the “courage and daily life of its people as it is a dirge to a paradise lost, a paean to the beauty of Kashmir’.
“It is one of the first fiction books on Kashmir dealing with insurgency. A novel in short stories, with each of the stories interconnected, the book is one of our lead literary fiction debuts for the year. This fascinating collection of writings on Kashmir promises to be a thrilling and compelling read,” the statement adds.
Giving details of the book, the statement said, “Over the last three decades, Kashmir has been ravaged by insurgency. While reams have been written on it in human rights documents, academic thesis, non-fiction accounts of the turmoil and government and military reports, the effects of the violence on its inhabitants have rarely been rendered in fiction.”
“Through a series of interconnected stories, within which the same characters move in and out, the author weaves a tapestry of the horror Kashmir has come to represent. His visceral imagery explores the psychological impact of the turmoil on its natives — Showkat, who is made to wipe off a graffiti on the wall of his shop with his tongue; Rosy, a progressive, jeans-wearing upper-caste girl who is in love with lower-caste Jamshid; Jamshid’s father Gulam, a cobbler who never finds his son’s bullet-riddled body; and even the barbaric and tyrannical Major S, who has to contend with his own nightmares,” it adds.
