Up in the Main House & Other Stories - Softcover

Zaman, Nadeem

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1944700986 ISBN 13: 9781944700980

Publisher: The Unnamed Press, 2019

Synopsis

Up in the main house, servants have worked for decades watching the city rise around it, feeling like part of the family but knowing they aren’t.

Nadeem Zaman’s new collection of eight stories set in contemporary Dhaka explore the inner lives of the cooks and butlers, nightwatchmen and peons – people who have spent decades working for the same family, in the same house. Arranged marriages are negotiated, favors asked, the social cues a subtle dance. The daily itineraries must run like clockwork for the rich and well off who have their own problems, but in Nadeem's stories they appear thin and forever insecure, a byproduct of the real lives being lived around them. There are digressions, too, big ones like the interlopers and prowlers, petty thieves, and calculated con men, and small ones, like the servant woman who locks herself in the master bedroom while the family is away and the night guard who wonders, if there is always the family, does he have one of his own?

Beautifully compelling and quietly powerful, Zaman’s stories capture an old way of life and ask what’s next?

About this title

About the Author

Nadeem Zaman was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh and grew up there and in Chicago. His work has appeared in Roanoke Review, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Open Road Review, The Milo Review, The East Bay Review, The Coppefield Review, Eastlit, China Grove Journal, 94 Creations, the Dhaka Tribune, and Salon.com. He is currently a doctoral candidate in Comparative Humanities at the University of Louisville, with a dissertation focus on Fiction and Postcolonial Theory and Literature.

Review

"These stories are an idealist's quiet rebellion through subtle unexpected, hopeful turns within the expected of the daily churn. The outsider Nadeem
Zaman finds quintessential urban Bangladeshi experiences, and presents these pockets of life in Dhaka to English literature." —Ikhtisad Ahmed, author of
Yours, Etcetera

"Nadeem Zaman's stories are rich with the drama, small victories, and heart-rending choices of ordinary lives. The characters are evocatively drawn,
jumping off the page into my imagination. He explores the relationships between men and women with a deft touch. His stories move between genuine hilarity to the things that are dark and just underneath the surface of a tightly wound and ancient society. This collection is filled with surprises and illuminations, powerfully capturing the lives of some of Dhaka's citizens in ways that will stay with you." —Sharbari Zohra Ahmed, author of
The Ocean of Mrs Nagai: Stories

About this edition

• Publisher: The Unnamed Press
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1944700986
• ISBN 13: 9781944700980
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176