Translated by Debabrota Basu

Edited by Zakir Hossain Khokan & Monir Ahmod

Migrant Tales is a bilingual anthology of poems by migrant Bengali poets in Singapore. It is published in Singapore and Bangladesh. Following its launch at Singapore migrant worker poetry competition in December, 2016, it is featured at the poetry reading events in Singapore and also the Ekushey (21st) book fair in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Representation of each poem alternatively in Bengali and English depicts the two-fold existence of migrants. Bengali version reflects the old selves of them that they left at their homes. On the other hand, the English version unveils their endeavour to reinvent themselves in this new space-time. In this new world, they hardly find the caress of their mother tongue but often come across glimpses of old selves and an unquenchable longing to return.

This book is meant to create a poetic bonding between the local residents and the migrant poets. It is also meant to reassure the compatriots that all who left home are not gone.

“Migrant workers are someone whom we’re so familiar with but sometimes we don’t see them, they are invisible. These books flesh out their lives for us to experience, their emotions.” — Reuters

This book is one of the first creation of the Migrant Literature Movement in Singapore. Multiple academic reviews and papers are written on this book, and also multiple workshop sessions in universities, such as Imperial College, Nanyang University of Technology, National University of Singapore, rotated around it.