JOIN USThe seventh part of Taslima Nareen's autobiography 'Nirbasan' (Exile) is selling like hot cakes at the Kolkata Book Fair, a day after it was released amidst controversy.
"We have ordered a reprint. The first print of 1000 copies is sold out. We are overwhelmed with the response," publisher Shibani Mukherji of the People's Book Society said.
Bookstores and stalls at the fair are already running out of stock. "Women, in particular, are making a beeline for our stall," the publisher said insisting that the contents of the memoirs had nothing controversial.
The latest installment in the series of her memoirs, 'Nirbasan' gives an account of the controversial Bangladeshi author's plight following her expulsion from her adopted home of Kolkata in November 2007.
Written in Bengali, the new book traces the circumstances in which she was bundled out by the government to New Delhi and the resultant mental trauma and insecurity of not having a home anywhere in the world.
"It talks about the period 2007-08 of my life beginning from the attack on me during a book release function at Hyderabad. Later on, chaos was created in Kolkata and I was asked to leave the city," Nasreen told PTI from New Delhi.
Taslima's Dhaka publishers are now trying to get the book released in Bangladesh, Mukherjee said.
'Nei, Kichu Nei' (Nothing is there), was the sixth part of her autobiographical series published in 2010.
Milli Itehad Parishad General Secretary Abdul Aziz had yesterday lodged a protest with the publisher that the book should not have been launched because it hurt religious sentiments.
Demanding an apology and withdrawal of the book, Aziz had threatened an agitation at the fairground after which the police posted its personnel outside the publisher's stall.