May 23, National: Westland Books has announced the release of its latest translation, The Last Bench, written by Adhir Biswas, and translated from the Bengali by V. Ramaswamy. It was the winner of the English Pen Translation Award in 2022. This childhood memoir is also the first title marking the rebranding of Westland’s celebrated languages and translations imprint ‘Eka’ as ‘Ekadā’.
The Last Bench is the memoir of a low-caste boy who came to West Bengal as a refugee from East Pakistan. This is a personal account of nostalgia, displacement, conflict and tragedy, which paints a poignant picture of what it means to be invisible in an unequal society.
Talking about the book, translator V. Ramaswamy said, ‘The Last Bench by Adhir Biswas brings together a trilogy of childhood memoirs in Bangla by a prize-winning writer, written in the author’s signature terse and cryptic prose. It is about the inner world of a village barber’s son, a sensitive child, who discovers the brutal truth of social relations when he joins school, even as his Ma is battling for life. This is a beautiful, poignant and powerfully evocative book.’
Minakshi Thakur, Publisher, Ekadā a, added, ‘The Last Bench, translated from Bengali by award-winning translator V. Ramaswamy, is a childhood memoir by Dalit writer and publisher Adhir Biswas. Adhir Biswas came to West Bengal as a refugee from East Pakistan. In this devastating yet tenderly written account, he revisits his childhood in a lost land. Born into the caste of barbers, he’s continually discriminated against and sent to the back of the class to sit separately. Its profound simplicity compelled us to showcase it.’
The Last Bench is available across all leading bookstores and online.
ALSO READ: The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride Unites at CP 67 Mall to Support Men’s Mental Health
About Adhir Biswas (author)
Adhir Biswas was born in 1955 in the village of Magura, in the Jessore district of erstwhile East Pakistan. His family moved to Calcutta in 1967. He began writing in magazines in 1976 at a friend’s prompting, and is the author of twenty-two volumes of fiction and non-fiction, including two sets of
refugee memoirs, and two childhood memoirs. He was awarded the West Bengal Bangla Academy’s Suprabha Majumdar Memorial Prize in 2014 for his refugee memoir, Allahr Jomite Paa, and the Vidyasagar Prize in 2017 for his four-volume collection of stories, novellas and novels for young readers, Udojahaj. Adhir Biswas established the publishing house Gangchil in 2005. He is currently the publications editor of the Dalit Sahitya Academy in West Bengal.
About V. Ramaswamy (translator)
V. Ramaswamy is a translator of voices from the margins. Among the writers he has translated from West Bengal and Bangladesh are Subimal Misra, Manoranjan Byapari, Mashiul Alam, Shahidul Zahir, Swati Guha, Shahaduz Zaman and Ismail Darbesh. His translation of Adhir Biswas’s refugee memoir, Memories of Arrival: A Voice from the Margins, was published in 2022. Ramswamy was on the JCB Prize for Literature for two consecutive years, shortlisted for The Nemesis by Manoranjan Byapari and longlisted for Talashnama by Ismail Darbesh. In 2010, he won the Crossword Book Award for Translation. He was also the NIF Translation Fellow in 2022. The Last Bench was selected for the inaugural PEN Presents award in 2022.
About Westland Books
Westland Books is an award-winning Indian publisher with a diverse and exciting range of books from popular and literary fiction to business, politics, biography, spirituality, popular science, health, and self-help. Its key publishing imprints include Context, which publishes award-winning literary fiction and non-fiction; Ekadā, which publishes the best of contemporary writing in Indian languages and in translation; Tranquebar, home to the best new fiction from the Indian subcontinent; the eponymous Westland Sport, Westland Business, Westland Non-Fiction, and Red Panda, which publishes a range of books for children of different ages. Indie Press, a self-publishing imprint was added in 2023 which now is a home to varied and exciting new and old voices. In 2024, it also launched IF, the list for speculative fiction. Westland also collaborated with Pratilipi Comics to bring compelling graphic stories to its readers.
Platforms like EasyShiksha.com leverage retargeting to re-engage learners, making it an essential strategy for online education and beyond. Implement these best practices to refine your retargeting approach and achieve long-term success
