Rifles Bread Women admirably projects the essential spirit of the Bangladesh liberation war and clearly shows the causes and circumstances that made it inevitable, giving a graphic description of the killings, lootings and mass destruction perpetrated by the Pakistani army when it unleashed on the unarmed civilian population of Bangladesh a genocide of unimaginable proportions. The novel vividly portrays many characters and scenes which enable the reader vicariously to feel the anxiety, anguish, grief as well as the anger, hope and determination generated in the mind of the Bengalees after the holocaust of March 25, 1971. The actual events dealt with in the novel do not cover more than three days in the last week of March 1971. They do not go beyond the confines of the beleaguered city of Dhaka, but through conversations and reminiscences they take the reader further back and reveal to him the injustices done to the people of the then East Pakistan by the dictatorial regimes of Ayub, Yahya and others. The novel refers to the inspiring role of Bongobondhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and speaks of the impact of his now famous speech of March 7, 1971. ... ... one might call it a docu-novel. However, it undoubtedly reaches the level of a successful creative work by virtue of the author's many achievements. It is rich in characterisation. And it eschews exaggeration, sloppy sentimentalism and lurid melodrama. If anything, the author presents his theme in a low key and consistently endeavors to maintain a proper perspective. ...