From Being a Banker to a Writer

Mashrur Arefin’s debut novel August Abchhaya burst into the Bangladesh literary landscape in February 2019, won rave reviews and went on to become an instant bestseller. The author speaks to Colors about his poignant debut, about how he prepared himself for his first major work in fiction, the literary heroes he draws inspiration from and his next novel.

The sensational success of August Abchhaya turned the literary spotlight on Mashrur Arefin, who takes delight in being identified as a writer as well as a banker. He feels that for the past 25 years he has been identified publicly only as the latter a banker by people who have ignored a major dimension of his life and works. He says, “for the first time now I am seeing that a second identity is not only emerging but also overshadowing the one I had till date: only a banker! Such a view ignores the fact that I have been writing creatively for 27 years now.”

In fact, he first got published in 1992 in the prestigious literary magazine Maati edited by poet Maruf Raihan. He recalls: “getting published in that magazine was every writer’s dream back in those days.” A big turning point came in his literary career, however, when Abul Hossain, editor of the most respected literary supplement of the Daily Shongbaad, asked him to write a regular column for the supplement.

His first book of poems, Ishwardi, Mayor O Mule-erGolpo came out in 2001.The literary world of Bangladesh greeted then an utterly distinctive voice in poetry. Till date, his poetry has a fan base that is not negligible.

In 2012 he published a major work of translation, Complete Stories of Franz Kafka, which earned him the BRAC-Samakal Literary Award and the Best Publication of the Year award of the Bangla Academy. He says of the genesis of the work, “Kafka is a towering figure of twentieth century literature. He is actually the biggest name of the 20th-century literature if you ask me. I am a very big fan of Kafka and felt readers were waiting for Kafka in Bangla.”

Arefin’s gripping translation of Franz Kafka was published to critical acclaim and is considered to be a landmark in contemporary Bengali translation literature. His works in the genre are particularly admired for their scholarly apparatus: extended introductions, extensive annotations and comments, and even some exegesis. The Kafka book was followed by an equally important undertaking: a translation of one of the greatest works of Western literature, Homer’s epic Illiad. Here too a 200-page critical analysis was appended to the translation itself.

Were these translation works preparing Arefin for his debut novel August Abchhaya ( “The Penumbra of August” is a rough English translation of the title)? He feels that translating Kafka and Homer helped him with his experimentation in Bengali. “For me it was like a testing ground for handling the multifaceted dimensions of Bengali prose. I wanted to learn more about how to translate complex sentences without their losing their meaning and beauty. Tone and mood are important as well; good writing is not just about vocabulary and grammar.” He feels that it also helped him gain his confidence in his own prose.

Passionate writer that he is, Arefin is a great admirer of Jorge Luis Borges, Franz Kafka, W. G. Sebald, and Bruce Chatwin. In fact, he admits that he inhabits the world of Kafka and Borges. Though apparently Kafka has had any sway in August Abchhaya, at a deeper level Kafka’s influence is traceable is the recurring themes of a bewildered burden of living, and of the inevitable isolation that marks human existence, the feeling of absurdity, and the sense of the limits of human sympathy.

Autobiographical in tone, the novel opens with the anonymous protagonist of the novel’s attempt to translate into Bengali Kafka’s story ‘The Great Wall of China’. He then zooms in on the section he has translated in which a conspiracy to kill the emperor of China is being hatched. Highly intertextual and full of literary allusions, the book is a phantasmagoria of a sensitive mind in which reality is entangled with the fantastic.  Written in the first person and in the style of a journal, the novel is clearly a tribute to Mashrur Arefin’s literary hero Franz Kafka.

Profound and moving, the novel ruminates on death, melancholy and power relationships.  One can also find the influence of Marcel Proust in the way he traces memory, contemplates history, reflects on pain and feels about his attempts to find love as well as his longing to be loved.

The novel lacks linear progression. Through short philosophical musings on the deaths of his favorite writers Kafka and Keats, the author prepares readers for a bigger tragedy: the gruesome killing of Bangabandhu and his family.

What makes August Abchhaya interesting is that it appeals equally to the head and to the heart. It is well-paced, evocative and multilayered; it has the feel of a thriller but is calculated to make the reader introspect as well. 

Commenting on his choice of genres, Arefin says, “Part journal, part travelogue, my prose is a blend of both genres. Though journal and travel writings give intimacy and immediacy to lived reality, this technique is seldom used in Bengali literature.”

Arefin believes firmly that there must be something beyond your personal experiences to give you a better perspective on human affairs; writers must create a parallel universe to supplement the autobiographical one. Thus, he focuses on creating a spatial entity and metaphysical aspects. “This is where I have gone off the beaten path of Bengali novel-writing tradition. People may not be comfortable with such experiments and inevitably there have been some negative criticism. Fortunately, however, most people have welcomed August Abchhaya because it is such a glorious mess,” he says with a smile.

Bengali novels are for the most part dominated by descriptions and dialogues; and the projections of mindscapes is kept to a minimum. That is exactly what Arefin wanted to change. “I did not want to depict reality as it is, I wanted to go behind and beyond that reality — link it to some sort of philosophy. I have always had a strong knack for philosophy.”

Talking about expressing his passion for both literature and finance, he declares that his way out is to balance both. “Literature is my biggest passion; I do not want to die without writing at least 6-7 novels. I cannot go a day without reading. The books I read help me gather my own thoughts and they also help me in my banking career.”

He is currently working on his next novel, which is set in Russia.The novel is expected to hit bookstores this Eid.