The Partition of Bengal
Fragile Borders and New Identities

The book is focused on the impact of Partition on the eastern part of India – West Bengal and Bangladesh.

Debjani Sengupta (Author)

9781107061705, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 22 October 2015

283 pages
23.8 x 15.9 x 2.3 cm, 0.54 kg

'This work is substantive not merely because of the political and literary elements Sengputa brings into her narrative but also because of the focus she places on the roles of such individuals as Ashoka Gupta, Renuka Ray and Renu Chakravartty in promoting communal harmony in Bengal.' Syed Badrul Ashan, Asian Affairs

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.

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.

Subject Areas: Asian history [HBJF], Literature: history & criticism [DS]