Mriter Joban (The Voice of the Dead)
Amina Shelly
Poetry · Death · Bangla
Life speaking, touched by death.
At a Glance
Death is sometimes fear. Sometimes wonder. Filled with intimacy and certainty, Mriter Joban is a collection of 52 poems that approaches death from many directions.
About the Book
Almost every direction in Mriter Joban leads towards death. Sometimes death is very close. Sometimes invisible. Sometimes it comes and touches like a lover. Sometimes it feels like the only place of certainty.
But death does not take a single form here. There is fear. Curiosity. Wonder. Sometimes there is a desire to die, return, and tell stories of the other side. Sometimes it feels as though there is nothing after death. These contradictions remain side by side.
Death comes close to the body too. Shrouds, graves, corpses, bones and skin mingle with love, sex, kisses and desire. Sometimes death clings to the body like a bra or underwear. So intimate that no one can see it from the outside. And yet, in speaking of death, the world left behind keeps returning. Mustard fields. The fields of childhood. Batnar Bil. Bamboo groves. Parents. Children. The person one loves. As if the thought of leaving makes everything that remains behind come more clearly into view.
At some point, death also comes face to face with poetry. People die. But poetry? Can the dead continue to speak through what they have written? Mriter Joban leaves us questioning.
Author's Note
I never planned to write so many poems about death. But as I kept writing, death kept appearing before me.
Death makes me think. It frightens me. But it also makes me curious. What is it like? How does it come? What remains after we are gone? Sometimes I feel there is something. There has to be. Sometimes I feel there is nothing. In my poems I haven’t tried to resolve these contradictions.
Instead, writing about death has made me realise how much I will have to leave behind. Children. Relatives. Poetry. The beloved I don't have. My own body. My fields of childhood. Home. Very ordinary joys of everyday chaos. The closer I come to death in my thoughts, the closer these things seem to come to me. I haven't made death only frightening or only beautiful. Across 52 poems death comes with its own twists. With love and melancholy. Poems about death aren’t really for death. I talk so much about death because I am alive.
— Amina Shelly
Book Details
Title: Mriter Joban
Author: Amina Shelly
Genre: Poetry · Death
Language: Bangla
Number of Poems: 52
Pages: 112
Binding: Paperback
Edition: First Edition
First Published: April 2025
Publisher: Nagree Prokash
Cover Design: Mostafiz Karigar
ISBN: 978-984-99883-8-0
Price: BDT 250
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