Description
Poetry. Bilingual edition. Translated from the Bengali by the author. "Sonnets, like diamonds, are these days cut and polished around the world. On the Subcontinent, they have been written in a host of languages, including Bengali, the original language of Hassanal Abdullah's SWATANTRA SONNETS. He has been perfecting this form since the 1990s and has composed over 210. Some have been previously translated into English by Caroline Gill, a London poet, and by two Bengali poets Robiul Manik and Rahman Apu. This selection, translated by the author, can be thought of as a collection of gems that illuminate his originality of form."—Joan Digby
Author Bio
Hassanal Abdullah, author of 35 books including 16 collections of poetry, was born in Gopalgonj, Bangladesh. He immigrated to New York in 1990, and earned his Bachelor and Masters in mathematics at Hunter College of the City University of New York. He is now a NYC high school math teacher. He edits an international bilingual poetry quarterly, Shabdaguchha. His poetry, in original Bengali text and in English translation, has been published in many countries throughout the world. Mr. Abdullah has also introduced a new sonnet form, where the rhyming scheme is abcdabc efgdefg, with a seven-line stanza pattern. He calls them "Swatantra Sonnets," for which he received the Labu Bhai Foundation Award (2013). A poet of the postmodern era, Hassanal Abdullah, has also written a 304-page epic, Nakhatra O Manusar Prochhad (Anyana, 2007), where, based on several scientific theories, he illustrates relations between human beings and the universe. Both this epic and his Selected Poems (Anyana, 2010) were published in Bengali in Dhaka. In addition, he has translated Anna Ahkmatova, Charles Baudelaire, Stanley Kunitz, Nicanor Parra, Gerald Stern, Wislawa Szymborska, Dylan Thomas, Tomas Tranströmer, and others from many parts of the world into Bengali, and more than 30 Bangladeshi poets into English. In 2007, he was an Honorable Mention for Poet Laureate of Queens, New York. In 2016, as a guest of at the International Silk Road Chinese Poetry Festival in the Szechuan Province, he was awarded the Homer European Medal of Poetry & Art.
Author City: NEW YORK, NY USA