Item 124 - Letter from Hasan Shahid Suhrawardy to R. C. Trevelyan

1 item

21, Theatre Road, Calcutta (on University of Calcutta printed notepaper). - If Trevelyan thinks the "Acacia Tree" is below standard, he should not print it: Suhrawardy has sent it because of [A.E.] Coppard's letter and because Aldous Huxley had liked it and included it in his 'first literary venture' [the "Palatine Review", see 6/124]. Was worried in case the book would seem 'amateurishly slight'. Is upset because he has had a letter today from [Marie] Germanova saying they [she and her husband Kalitinsky] are going to move to a small three-roomed flat and let 14 Nungesser et Coli, saving less than fifteen pounds a year; he wants them to live as comfortably as they can since they are 'all three' [including the dog, Rex] old. For their last days there, they will have Bev and [their son] Andrée there, as well as his own nephew who has finished his school at Hastings and Germanova's nephew from Russia. Is so glad Julian and Ursula went to see them. Asks if there is still time to get three hundred copies of the poems instead of two hundred: it may be possible to sell some; only wants two hundred to be bound. Calcutta 'humming with political excitement' about the Andaman convicts on hunger strike; students are out in the streets protesting against the government, in which his brother (whom Trevelyan once met) is the Labour Minister. Asks how Bessie's eyes are, and whether Trevelyan had heard of Ross Masood's sudden death; he was [E.M.] Forster's friend.