Can a single word reveal the whole gamut of a book, specially called novel? The very question may surprise anyone. ‘It is next to impossible’ can be a common affswer. But the book, now in your hand, can be described by a single word, ‘zeitgeist’.
The word means and reveals the spirit of time, general trend of thought or feeling, characteristics of a particular period of time. The novel Seventy One is exactly does the same. The year itself is an epoch-making one, in the form of emergence of independent Bangladesh in the world’s map through a tough struggle of blood and sweat.
The novel has some characters through whom the story is woven and progressed. But the central character remains unnamed and undeclared and that is ‘Time and People’. To get a proof there is no other alternative but to go through the book itself.
