Return of the mermaid
Mahbub Husain Khan relives old fairy tales
Hans Christian Andersen was born on 2 April 1805 at Odense near Copenhagen, Denmark, and died on 4 August 1875 in Copenhagen. He was a unique master of fairy tales whose stores are famous throughout the world. He is also the author of a number of plays, novels, poems, travel books and several autobiographies. He is considered to be the master of the art of fairy tales, whose works rank with the traditional stories in universal popularity. It is not only that his countrymen deify him, as much as it is that the outside world does. Sunanda Kabir has brought out the Bangla version for the young as also for older readers in Bangladesh, a translation of some of the famous stories of Hans Andersen. Though many of the readers may have read the stories in English and are capable of appreciating the English version, Sunanda Kabir's translations of the stories bring forth a new taste in literary accomplishment and allow readers in Bangladesh the opportunity of appreciating the stories as if they if they were taking place in Bangladesh in some fairy tale era. The stories will fascinate the young with their lore-content and the older readers will find allegorical allusions in these stories, which was the original intention of Hans Andersen. Sunanda Kabir's free-flowing language and the delightful pictures that adorn the stories are pleasing, literary-wise and visual-wise. Fairy tales are after all for the young and picturisation of the stories add to their imagination and appreciation.One look forward to more translations by Sunanda Kabir of epic tales told by well-known writers in English.
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