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Partition: The Writers Bringing Bengali Experience to Scottish Debates on Independence

Partition: The Writers Bringing Bengali Experience to Scottish Debates on Independence

This event will be broadcast on 14 May 2021 at 8pm. It is FREE to access, simply click 'Register' below. 

Bashabi Fraser, Abir Mukherjee and Sourit Bhattacharya discuss 'Partition - the writers bringing Bengali experience to Scottish debates on independence'

Major political shifts such as partition or debates on independence feed the literary landscape as much as they do the political one. Celebrated authors Bashabi Fraser, Abir Mukherjee and Sourit Bhattacharya will bring elements of their personal journeys to explore how they and other writers observe, imagine, explore and express an ever changing world and the range of human emotions it arouses through compelling storytelling. 

For this exciting event , we welcome poet, children’s writer, editor and academic Bashabi Fraser CBE and Professor Emerita of English and Creative Writing and Director of the Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies (ScoTs), Edinburgh Napier University. Her interests include postcolonial literature, migration and diaspora, and her work traverses continents, from Scotland to India. She will chair the conversation and dig into what we can learn from partition and how it was and still is relevant to the literary world.  

Scottish-Bengali writer Abir Mukherjee is the bestselling author of the Sam Wyndham series of crime novels set in Raj era India. He will describe how major structural political shifts can offer the perfect inspiration for creating characters and generating fascinating plots, and how crime novel writing gives him the freedom to become a social commentator.

Sourit Bhattacharya is a Lecturer in Postcolonial Studies at the University of Glasgow and author of Postcolonial Modernity and the Indian Novel. He is currently writing about famine and partition and will use elements of his analysis of Abu Ishaque's novel The Sun-Stretched House to explore the social consequences of partition.

This is a unique event brought to you by WritersMosaic an online platform funded by The Royal Literary Fund for new writing from a mosaic of literary voices and cultures across the UK. The event is run in partnership with Glasgow Centre for Contemporary Arts and University of Glasgow.