A review by miss_hempstock
Harbart by Nabarun Bhattacharya

5.0

Magic realism at its best on the Bengali canvas!

Nabarun Bhattacharya's radically iconoclastic approach, stemming from his anti-establishment political perspective, etches an almost strangely alternative narrative voice in his fictional work.
Herbert Sarkar, an orphan sheltered at his cousin's place, grows up unwanted, in close proximity with urban nature, and develops into a hardly literate, yet strikingly sensitive person, profoundly influenced the by Naxalite movement of the seventies. "Harbart" is the tale of a man who is perched perpetually on the fringe and subconscious phenomenon, fueling an omnipresent hunger, literal and as a social metaphor, which complicates things further making a trickster of him. হার্বার্টদা শ্মশানে যায়, গল্প তবু ফুরোয় না।
A masterly handling of magic realism immortalises "Harbart" with its dark humour, slightly off mainstream Bengali novel writing.