Life and times of literary magazines

(This article was published in our quarterly issue 'The Bangladesh Paradox'. Also part of our web-series on the issue.)

English-language literary magazines in Bangladesh have been shaped by the complex history of the nation's mother tongue, Bengali. The struggle to defend its language was a root cause of Bangladesh's War of Liberation and Independence. This bitter, protracted fight, and its aftermath, significantly shaped the role and place of English in Bangladesh. That, in turn, determined the course of creative writing in English, making the story of Bangladeshi literary journals in English really a tale of two languages.

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Bangladesh was colonial East Bengal before 1947, where English never did get firmly planted. The bulk of its population was Muslim peasantry, inching painfully towards political power and modern education. Hindus were the educated elite of the region, playing cricket with the sahibs, engaging in debates over civic issues, and teaching in the schools and colleges. But it was Calcutta (now Kolkata) that they looked to for divination – a city that was the center of the Bengal Renaissance, with its glittering cluster of writers and literature, the reformist shocks of Brahmo Samaj and with the 'Young Bengals' of Hindu College scandalising their elders by carousing and writing English poetry.