Author: Ashapoorna Devi
Publisher: Stree
Year: 1999
Language: English
Pages: 123
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8185604428
Description
In this collection of short stories by contemporary Bengali women spanning a period of fifty years since India's independence, the editors have tried to find answers questions such as:
What inspires women to write? What links their writings to the times and how are women's writings linked with each other? Partition had separated the two Bengals, yet women on both sides of the border have been writing about the trials of their everyday lives, the deprivation and repression they regularly face as women and the struggles that keep them alive. In many of the stories selected the act of writing itself becomes a metaphor of empowerment.
The editors explore a direct link between the women writers and the turbulent times that shaped them. There were riots and wars, there were women seeking employment, and there were women trying to find a voice of their own.
Among the thirteen authors are Sabitri Roy, Ashapurna Devi, Sulekha Sanyal, Chhabi Basu, Nabaneeta Dev Sen, Mahasweta Devi, Rajlakshmi Devi, Bani Basu and Anita Agnihotri from India and Jahanara Imam, Selina Hossain, Purabi Basu and Nasreen Jahan from Bangladesh.
THE EDITORS:
SWATI GANGULI teaches English at Visva Bharati, Santiniketan.
SARMISHTA DUTTA GUPTA is a journalist and a freelance book editor.