The Ballad of Ayesha: A Novel (Harper Perennial, Rs 299) by Anisul Hoque has been translated from Bengali, not too successfully though, by Inam Ahmed. The book must be read against the backdrop of two events, one mythical and one real: Behula bringing her husband back to life and the State-purge that took place after the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman.

The use of magic realism to describe life under an autocratic rule is not new. But here magic realism withers under the harsh glare of reality. Ayesha, unlike the mythical Behula, cannot bring back her husband who has been sentenced to death for participating in the attempted coup. There is another parable here for the discerning reader to glean — just as Behula tries to reclaim her husband and Ayesha sets off on a quest for her husband’s grave, literature is the author’s tool to reclaim democracy from a regime that was crushing individual freedoms. The text, however, oscillates between poignancy and inanity, making one question the translator’s mettle.