Seasonal Adjustments Book

Moving between Australia and Bangladesh, Seasonal Adjustments introduces a fresh new voice to the Australian literary scene - with a fascinating story to tell. Iqbal Chaudhary is fortyish, but the mid-life crisis he faces is more complex than many. His Australian marriage has collapsed, his past surfaces to bother his conscience and he feels a compulsive need to go back to the country he left immediately after the war with Pakistan, eighteen years earlier. But his reception from family and friends is deeply mixed. Iqbal is forced to confront why he left Bangladesh and how he feels about his family as well as his native country whose poverty, squalor and overcrowding make him react involuntarily with the squeamishness of a Westerner. Going back, he takes with him his young daughter. One of the many strengths of this multifaceted novel is the tender father-daughter relationship it portrays, as Iqbal brings her close to his origins and also faces the critical questions about his own cultural fragmentation and sense of belonging.

An emigrant to Australia returns to Bangladesh.