The Partition of Bengal

Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-1-107-06170-5
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 283 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 571 g

This study looks at the rich literature that has been spawned through the historical imagination of Bengali-speaking writers in West Bengal and Bangladesh through issues of homelessness, migration and exile to see how the Partition of Bengal in 1947 has thrown a long shadow over memories and cultural practices. Through a rich trove of literary and other materials, the book lays bare how the Partition has been remembered or how it has been forgotten. For the first time, hitherto untranslated archival materials and texts in Bangla have been put together to assess the impact of 1947 on the cultural memory of Bangla-speaking peoples and communities. This study contends that there is not one but many smaller partitions that women and men suffered, each with its own textures of pain, guilt and affirmation.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Sengupta, Debjani

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturgeschichte und Literaturkritik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. The Calcutta riots in representations and testimonies; 2. Noakhali and after: history, memory and representations; 3. Colony fiction: displacement and belonging in post-Partition Bangla fiction; 4. From Dandakaranya to Marichjhapi: refugee rehabilitation in Bangla Partition fictions; 5. The Partition's afterlife: nation and narration from the north-east of India and Bangladesh; 6. Uncanny landscapes and unstable borders: politics and identity in geo-narratives of the Partition (2005–10); Bibliography; Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Sengupta, Debjani
Debjani Sengupta teaches in the Department of English at Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi. Her publications include an anthology of Partition short fiction titled Mapmaking: Partition Stories from Two Bengals (2003, 2011) that she edited, and articles on Bangla science fiction, Bangla theatre and the Bengal Partition in anthologies and journals. She has contributed translations from Bangla to The Essential Tagore and The Oxford Anthology of Bengali Literature.