About the Book

SHORTLISTED FOR THE JCB PRIZE, THE DSC PRIZE, THE CROSSWORD BOOK AWARD IN 2019 AND THE MATHRUBHUMI BOOK OF THE YEAR PRIZE IN 2020.
It's the early 1970s. The Naxalbari Movement is gathering strength in Bengal. Young men and women have left their homes, picked up arms to free land from the clutches of feudal landlords and the state, and return them to oppressed landless farmers. They are being arrested en masse and thrown into high-security jails.
In one such jail, five Naxals are meticulously planning a jailbreak. They must free themselves if the revolution is to continue. But petty thief Bhagoban, much too happy to serve frequent terms for free food and shelter, has been planted by Jailor Bireshwar Mukherjee among them as a mole. Only, Bhagoban seems to be warming up to them.
Hawa Mein Barood Hai is a searing investigation into what deprivation and isolation can do to human idealism. And Manoranjan Byapari is perhaps the most refreshing voice to emerge from Bengal in recent times.

About the Author

Manoranjan Byapari was born in the mid-1950s in East Pakistan. His family migrated to West Bengal in India when he was three. They were resettled in a refugee camp. However, Byapari had to leave home at the age of fourteen to do odd jobs. In his twenties, he came into contact with the Naxals, and was sent to jail during this time, where he taught himself to read and write. He worked as a rickshaw-puller when he was released. He has written twenty books since. Some of his important works include Chhera Chhera Jibon, Ittibrite Chandal Jibon (memoir), the Chandal Jibon trilogy (novels) and Motua Ek Mukti Senar Naam. Until 2018, he was working as a cook at the Hellen Keller Institute for the Deaf and Blind in West Bengal. In 2018, the English translation of his memoir received the Hindu Prize. Byapari was recently elected a member of the Bengal Legislative Assembly.

About the Translator

Maneesha Taneja is doctorate in Spanish from Jawaharlal Nehru University and teaches Spanish language, literature and the art of translation at Delhi University. She has translated Gabriel Garc a Marquez's novel One Hundred Years of Solitude and Pablo Neruda's memoir from Spanish into Hindi. She has also translated into Hindi the novels of Amitav Ghosh, Nadine Gordimer, Turkish writer Hakan Gunday, A