Published to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Bangladesh’s Independence, the twenty-seven stories in this collection feature the finest short fiction from the nation—since before it achieved independence in 1971 to the present day. Here, readers will find all the greats of Bangladeshi literature: in Kazi Nazrul Islam’s timeless masterpiece, ‘The Demoness’, a woman’s fury is unleashed when she learns that her husband is getting married again; ‘The Raincoat’ by Akhtaruzzaman Elias brings to life the traumatic effect of war on ordinary people; Shawkat Ali’s ‘The Final Resting Place’ is concerned with love, grief, and the human capacity for recovery; in Hasan Azizul Huq’s ‘Nameless and Casteless’, an unnamed protagonist accidentally witnesses the hidden horrors of war; and Anwara Syed Haq’s ‘Pagli’ is a sharp commentary on madness and trauma. Exceptional in subject, theme, and style, these and the other stories in The Demoness reveal an extraordinary picture of a land and its people