Library of Bangladesh Presents Shaheen Akhtar : Beloved Rongomala, a novel

Based on an eighteenth-century legend from Bangladesh's Noakhali region, Beloved Rongomala follows the fortunes of Rongomala, the charismatic low-caste mistress of zamindar Raj Chandra Chowdhury. Chowdhury's philandering allows his uncle to rob the kingdom of Babupur blind: between his obliviousness and his uncle's avarice. Babupur becomes enmeshed in inevitable war. Beloved Rongomala introduces readers to enduring characters, the autocratic queen-mother Sumitra: the young queen Phuleshwari with her bird menagerie, Heera. the queen's chief maid and surrogate mother: feckless zamindar Raj Chandra; and Rongomala, whose rise and fall from grace forms the central arc of the story. Traveling from the feuding kingdoms of southern Bengal, to holy sites in the east, to the flamboyant matriarchal society of Burma; Beloved Rongomala is a story of identity and connection.