Review: The First Jasmines by Saima Begum

Saima Begum’s deeply accomplished debut novel is a haunting exploration of a buried time in history – the Bangladesh War of Independence. Set in 1971, the story opens with the rumbling disquiet across East Pakistan readying to reach a crescendo as the Mukti Bahini, the Bangladeshi freedom fighters, continue to uprise against the occupying Pakistani Army.

Against this volatile backdrop, two sisters, Lucky and Jamila, are attempting to provide their family with a semblance of stability but en route to their mother’s house, they are kidnapped by Pakistani soldiers and imprisoned in a cell-like room, within a detention camp, alongside other women. Once inside, they are each subjected to unthinkable cruelty at the hands of their captors and forced to confront the reality that survival against their oppressors may be a diminishing prospect.

Although much of the novel takes place within the dank and terrible environment of the overcrowded detention camp, Begum’s story never feels stifled. The underpinning theme of the book is the solidarity amongst the women living in these impossible conditions, and their small acts of resistance such as talking to each other in their native Bangla in the presence of the Urdu-speaking Pakistani soldiers or reassuring each other with memories of home.

In the moments where the occupying forces leave them alone, Lucky and Jamila not only yearn for their families and reminisce about their childhoods – they collectively begin to question the patriarchal norms that have allowed such senseless violence to be inflicted upon them. These introspective conversations provide brief glimpses of hope for the future but Begum also depicts the poignant reality that not only were such discussions immediately silenced upon the women’s release, but their traumatic experiences in the detainment camps were disregarded, too.

In her Author’s note, Saima Begum discusses how she initially wanted to write an academic piece on the women of the Bangladesh Liberation War but eventually felt that fiction was the correct medium for it, and she has evidently proven herself right. Begum’s evocative writing simultaneously manages to frankly recount the extreme trauma that occurred, and capture the nuance and emotion that these real-life stories deserve to be relayed with. Ultimately, The First Jasmines serves as a stark and timely reminder of how fiction can be a sociopolitical tool to humanise, but not sanitise, history.

You can purchase The First Jasmines by clicking here.

By Zara Baig