Bangladesh: the color, the imagery, the bustling vibrancy of a crowded, argumentative, richly drawn society.

The characters and the situations from the talented pen of Fakiha Huq spring to life in the pages of this collection of vignettes, many of which originally appeared in leading Bangladeshi publications.

We meet a fascinating, exotic range of characters; wealthy industrialists, poor beggars and prostitutes with hardly a rag to their name, and society ladies driving the latest cars. We feel that Fakiha Huq has indeed taken us aboard a magic carpet, and when we look at a world atlas and...