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Precarious Cultures: Bangladeshi Novels in English and in English Translation

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Representations of Precarity in South Asian Literature in English

Abstract

This chapter engages with the notion of “precarity”, which is proving to be of peculiar relevance to the present-day world, in relation to a broad range of Bangladeshi novels, either originally in English or translated into English from the original Bengali. “Precarity” is situated in the context of modern thought, on the one hand, and on the other, of neoliberal capitalism, which dominates the global economy and has led to the emergence of Bangladesh as an expanding, manufacturing economy. The country’s literary tradition is sketched before modern and contemporary works are examined in terms of their treatment of precarity, which may arise from historical events like World War II, the Partition of 1947, the independence war of 1971, natural disasters like cyclones, or the exigencies of socio-economic and political factors.

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Correspondence to Kaiser Haq .

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Haq, K. (2022). Precarious Cultures: Bangladeshi Novels in English and in English Translation. In: Dwivedi, O.P. (eds) Representations of Precarity in South Asian Literature in English. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06817-1_14

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