Literary Works and Style
Shaheedul Jahir distinguished himself with his surrealist approach to fiction. He wrote both short stories and novels. His started to write in late-1970s. His first published story 'Bhalobasah" (tr. Love) clearly reflected influence of Bengali novelist Syed Waliullah. His first book of short stories, published in 1985, Parapar bore his tendency to portray human character in intricate language in the perspective of a thin story-line. He has been said to be a magic-realist in line with Latin American writers and termed Zahir has been termed the new Marquez of Bangladesh. However, he admitted the influence of two contemporary novelist, namely Syed Shamsul Haque and Akhtaruzzaman Elias, in addition to Syed Waliullah. Thematically, the storylines of a number of stories bear the influence of Marxist paradigm. Also, in many novels and stories he has chosen the perspective of 1971, the year of liberation war of Bangladesh.He also translated a few stories from English.
Sometimes he wrote poetry but never published any. Also, he translated Bengali poems into English when he had leisure. Two lines from his flings at poetry is quoted below:
"... Yet we congregate once again
And a bud blooms into a flower through our time
A silvery Rupchanda floats in salty water..."
(Translated by Faizul Latif Chowdhury)
Read more about this topic: Shahidul Zahir
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