Starmark hosts launch of Agradoot Ghatak’s Bengali novel Atanur Suyopoka

Ghatak’s novel Atanur Suyopoka relates to six years of Atanu Chatterjee’s life.

Atanu, the only child of his parents, led a lonely life ever since his dismissal from school when he was in class IV and was living in his palatial family house on the banks of the river Rupnarayan, near Kolkata.

What became important in his lonely life were the books of a large library and thereafter, Swapna, a romantic, literature-loving girl, Ghana, an orphan, Debjanidebi, his maternal grandmother and a Vaishnavite, Mohan, his younger uncle and a Communist, Sraboni, his uncle’s late lover, and Baikal, a bird from the Himalayas.

While handling the pressures of his own education and of the aspirations of his ambitious parents, Atanu discovers the darkness of the past deeds of all his family elders which lie hidden against acceptable norms of morality. In unveiling these mysteries, Atanu discovers a new philosophy of life.

San Francisco based Ghatak, a computer engineering graduate, is a designer by profession, a photographer by passion, and a true Bengali in everything he loves. Atanur Suyopoka, is his first Bengali novel. His first story was published in Kishore Gyan-Bigyan in 1990; thereafter, his other short stories and poems were published elsewhere.

Agradoot is also an award-winning photographer. His photographs have been displayed at the Louvre Museum in Paris, in Moscow, San Jose, Miami and at exhibitions held elsewhere, and have also been published in numerous books, magazines and catalogues.