Translated for the first time from the Bengali, this astonishingly radical novel is about Chhobi, a gutsy, misfit girl from a rural landowning family, who questions injustice, fights to share the privileges offered to her brother and male cousins, and refuses to see her future as just another submissive household drudge. Nabankur means a new seedling, which is personified by Chhobi, who is growing up in the late 1930s and the early 1940s in Bengal where anti-colonial struggles against British rule are in full swing. As her political awakening gains maturity, thoughts of personal freedom fill her heart.
'It's all fate! Fate! If they are doomed to suffer, what can anyone do?'
'It's not fate!' was Chhobi's angry retort. 'It's Amaladi who chose to drive her away. Sudhadi is not at fault. If anyone is to blame, it's the police. Look at Nilu's family––they are so poor, and you blame it on fate . . .'