The unquiet front: Bangladesh war writing and its discontents

Thesis

The war of 1971 between East and West Pakistan, which led to the formation of Bangladesh, transformed the geopolitics of the subcontinent. While it continues to shape the construction of identities, political discourse, and cultural production in Bangladesh, and has generated a wide range of textual responses, the rich body of literature surrounding it has received little scholarly attention, especially outside Bangladesh. This thesis recovers and examines this literature, contending that it is not a unified, homogenous narrative, as both its critics and champions have often made it out to be. Instead, it aims to tease out the myriad discontents—doubts, dilemmas, and dissonances about nationalist sentiments—that pulse underneath these narratives.

Here, I engage with a range of historical and literary materials, from cartoons and photographs to graphic narratives and self-consciously literary fiction in both Bengali and English, produced over five decades by authors based in Bangladesh and across the diaspora. Drawing on an interdisciplinary methodology that includes oral interviews and archival research alongside literary analysis, this study investigates how war writing upholds, partially complies with, or resists sanitized nationalist discourses within Bangladesh. In this, the thesis aims to open a space in English literary studies for discussion about non-European wars and their relationship to literary representation. It builds on various disciplines—drawing on theories of nationalism and philosophical engagements with the ‘Other’—but always with attention to literary form. 

This research makes a case for literature bearing witness to some of the undercurrents that lie in the shadows of nationalist ‘glory’. However, instead of providing a normative account of literature filling in the gaps of state-sponsored archives, it also identifies blind spots within the literature itself. Each chapter focuses on a different figure of the ‘Other’ in war discourse—external enemy, internal enemy, internally displaced camp residents, war-born child, and disillusioned citizen—tracing how they interact with literary form and offering a framework for reading literary engagements with humanitarian crises and their aftermath.

Authors: Sen, M

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-o169v9z5p
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: South Asia; conflict literature; camp studies; empathy and literature; translation; war literature; nationalism and literature; Bangladesh
• Subjects: Literature