Writing was never regarded as a women’s forte. Yet, mainstream literature has been known to be silently nudged by the saintly articulations of Akka Mahadevi, Mirabai or Lal Ded in the past. It was during the national movement in India that many writers put down their experiences in the spirit of social reform. The women writers associated with the Progressive Writers’ Movement, in particular, such as Rashid Jehan and Ismat Chugtai are well known for having taken up social issues that affected the lives of women. But women have always had to work from the peripheries to snatch, as it were, this position in society.
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Vermillion Clouds: A Century of
Women’s Stories from Bengal
Translated by Radha Chakravarty
Women Unlimited; Pp 231; Rs 350
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Through the ages, short stories have found an affinity with women writers: the illustrious names of Swarnakumari Devi, Indira Devi, Anurupa Devi and Nirupama Devi cannot be brushed aside. Although no one can forget the remarkable contribution of its pioneers, lately many women writers have taken to writing short stories such as Jhumpa Lahiri, Vandana Singh, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Bharati Mukherjee, Anita Nair, Ginu Kamani and a host of others who write in regional languages in the Indian literary landscape. Radha Chakravarty has done well to translate lesser known Bengali short story writers and give them visibility in this anthology.
Most of these stories possess a naiveté that we might even call an artlessness, which is not surprising considering the time period they were written in. Early women writers lacked the art of constructing an arresting plot coupled with crisp writing, the methods of developing central characters, novel subject matter, or the subtle suspense of a denoument that make for "good" story telling.
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