Haran's Death COMMENTARY & TRANSLATION FROM BENGALI BY OSMAN JAMAL

In the early 1950s Jasimuddm, a poet and an older contemporary, remembered Fazlul Huq in an autobiography as 'the greatest short story writer of Muslim Bengal'. Yet it was not until 1985 that a posthumous volume of three of Huq's short stories was published m Dhaka with an introduction by Shaukat Osman and Shamsur Rahman. A fourth story, 'Haran's Death', was subsequently discovered and added to the three in a later edition. Jasimuddin's accolade, if it were to be based on four short stories, originally published in 1944-45, would appear to be excessive. Nevertheless the quality of these stories do point to a promise which was cut short.