Unsunk hero

Anam’s new novel, Uprising, is set in a fictionalised version of a real-world ‘floating brothel’ in Bangladesh. In the book, resistance is brewing in this forgotten corner of the world. Through the lives of women shaped by poverty, violence and a hungry sea, Anam explores what it can take to sustain such a fight to be free. Revolution has shaped her own life, says the daughter of freedom fighters. ‘I want to tell people, if those facing the worst cruelties can find a way to rebel, then anyone can’

- Anesha George

What forms can rebellion take on a fast-sinking desolate island?

Inspired by Banishanta, a real-life “floating” brothel settlement in Bangladesh, Tahmima Anam’s new novel, Uprising (Penguin Random House), is set on a fictional strip of land rapidly being reclaimed by the sea. It is mainly women and children trapped there, in routines marked by despair. Then, a teenager arrives from the mainland.

Kusum Khan once marched against the Dictator. Now, she forces the island’s inhabitants to face a bitter truth: No one is coming to save them. She incites revolt against the settlement’s brutal order, challenging the tyranny of the ruthless Amma who heads it.

“This book turned out to be more harrowing to write than anything I had written before,” says Anam, 50. The women endure lives of entrapment and indignity, in makeshift homes where their sons are typically sent away to be adopted and their daughters, by the age of 10, know the future that awaits them.

Why this setting, for her novel of civil unrest and rebellion?

Because it is a way to represent what is truly at stake, through the eyes and lives of some of the subcontinent’s most marginalised, says the London-based Bangladeshi author.

“When I first heard of the floating brothel about 15 years ago, I could hardly believe it was real. It seemed so unlikely, like something one would read in a novel: a remote island beset by storms and cyclones, home to 100 women and their children, each trapped, in one way or another.”

So, what would renewal look like, in a world like this?