Plumed Peacock

Set in medieval Bengal the novel Plumed Peacock has a particular contemporary relevance. In the central character of the novel the author presents a poet, a poor fellow, but of indomitable courage and unflagging patriotic zeal. Tortured by the feudal king and his fanatical priests and boot-licking sycophants, he fights relentlessly for upholding the rights and dignity of his mother-tongue. The final section of the novel depicts scenes of a heroic mass upsurge and is vibrant with the spirit of budding progressive liberal nationalism. The symbolic overtones are unmistakable. The reader is invariably reminded of the glorious Bengali language movement of 1952, the repressive measures of those days, the police firing and the killings as well as of the genocide of 1971 and the heroic liberation struggle that followed the massacre. The parallelisms are worked out with an enviable sureness of touch and the novel clearly projects the author as a competent exponent of socialist realism in our literary field. The Translator Kabir Chowdhury (1923) is a noted translator, critic and essayist. His elegant and lively English translations of Bengali poems, novels and short stories have been widely acclaimed at home and abroad. He has received many national and international awards for his contributions in the field of literature, education and peace.