The Hippo Girl and Other Stories is a collection of gut-wrenching heartbreaks by the Bangladeshi author, Shah Taziran Ashrafi. I loved reading it as well as having read it. The distinct characters are seared on my mind. I found it intriguing that the magnitude of emotion delivered back to back isn’t exhausting. There's no respite and I wanted none! Despite the length of the stories, the worlds created by the author are rich in their character dynamics and complex in their politics. The stories have a vast tonal range, which ultimately contributes to how engaging they are.

The thread that ties all the stories together is a sharp focus on people breaking because of the million atrocities committed by the state and/or society. Unfulfilled hopes, responsibilities, oppression, grief, bias, disability, and more come together to paint a picture of a people wounded by Bangladesh’s fragile political landscape. I think most of all, the collection is a meditation on loss.

It's a wonderful debut by an infinitely promising author! I couldn’t recommend The Hippo Girl and Other Stories enough.

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My favourite visuals that will linger in my mind for a while:

“A series of lighting reveals before us that we don’t have to worry about a cyclone. It is the hippos who are charging. All together. We have never seen them together. And to think that they are united and raging closer with every passing second is enough to make us soil ourselves.”

-The Hippo Girl