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Bruised memories: Communal violence and the writer
This unusual volume explores India's history of recurring communal violence through the feelings and emotions of poets and writers and of those who comment on society and politics. Poems, short stories, memoirs, essays and a panel discussion together probe how it feels when violence erupts, turning neighbours into enemies and home into an alien land.
193 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2002
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February 10, 2017
Bruised Memories: Communal Violence and the Writer, edited by Tarun K. Saint
This is a disturbing collection of poems, short stories and factual accounts. Bhisham Sahni’s Take Me home, the first short story of this collection, forces us to understand that literature that narrates the communal tension in India, subverting the secular fabric of our nation, evokes a keen sense of regret, and later, this regret changes to anger. For the factual accounts enrage you. You question the constitution of our nation and the safe abode of your home. At the same time, you admire those whose writings do not remain restricted to the margins of the pages; instead, the writings, the writers’ subject-positions read as political statements-politics that negates the discourse of Hindutva hierarchy. The entire collection is a political statement that explores the literary perception of communalism in compliance with the growing tension between Hindus and Muslims after the Independence/Partition of India in August 1947.
This is a disturbing collection of poems, short stories and factual accounts. Bhisham Sahni’s Take Me home, the first short story of this collection, forces us to understand that literature that narrates the communal tension in India, subverting the secular fabric of our nation, evokes a keen sense of regret, and later, this regret changes to anger. For the factual accounts enrage you. You question the constitution of our nation and the safe abode of your home. At the same time, you admire those whose writings do not remain restricted to the margins of the pages; instead, the writings, the writers’ subject-positions read as political statements-politics that negates the discourse of Hindutva hierarchy. The entire collection is a political statement that explores the literary perception of communalism in compliance with the growing tension between Hindus and Muslims after the Independence/Partition of India in August 1947.
Displaying 1 of 1 review