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Webinar looks at modern literary developments

By City Correspondent - 15 Sep 2010 12:00 AM GMT

GUWAHATI, Nov 2 - �Anger against politicians, erosion of values and identity crisis have become subject matters of fiction, auto-fiction and non-fictional writings of most of the writers in North East India at present, and the good trend is that national platforms have started to recognise it,� according to Dr Prasanta Kumar Das of Tezpur University.

The professor of English at Tezpur University was delivering a lecture on �Contemporary Indian Literature� at a national webinar organised by literary and socio-cultural research magazine Swarnalipi on Monday.

Inaugurating the webinar, Sahitya Akademi secretary Dr K Sreenivasarao said that the rapid advances in technology and social media were not only reducing geographical boundaries but were also bringing in a healthy trend of plenty of scope for optimism and uniqueness of Indian literature as a whole and in several languages in particular.

Drawing special focus to contemporary literary developments in several languages, Sreenivasarao said the Sahitya Akademi has taken up significant initiatives in various types of literature so that immortal creations could be expected in a big way.

Highlighting relevant aspects and commonalities of Odia and Assamese creative writings, Dr Dipti Phukan Patgiri, professor of Assamese at Gauhati University, said that many writers in both languages have confined their creativity not only in harsh social, cultural and political realities, but also in micro psycho-analytic study.

Delivering a talk on �Modern Poetry: Women Voices from South Indian Languages� with citations of many women poets from Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu, Dr AJ Thomas, editor of Indian Literature at Sahitya Akademi, said that women poetry is not written in isolation and their territory is well defined to establish their modes of empowerment, outlook and sense of liberation and specific expectations.

The recent and modern sensibility of Indian poetry is influenced not only by dissociation and terrorism but also by multi-consumerism and multiculturalism and dominated by severe pains and pathos of inequalities, said Dr Pranjit Borah, assistant professor in Assamese at Dibrugarh University, while delivering his talk on �Modernist Indian Poetry�.

Sib Sankar Majumder, assistant professor in English at Assam University, Silchar, while delivering his talk on �Urban outcasts and marginality in 21st century English fictions from North East India�, said that representation of cities in fiction not only focuses on urban realities from many points of a critic, but also to entertain readers with certain fantasies which reviewers usually find dissecting texts and expressions.

The webinar was moderated by Swarnalipi editor Hridayananda Gogoi. Many writers, academicians, scholars, including Sahityacharya Dr Parag Kumar Bhattacharyya, Dr Neeva Rani Phukan, Dr Chandana Das, Nayan Jyoti Bhuyan (Mumbai), Geeta Sarma (Mumbai), Dr Papori Senapti (Haflong), took part in the webinar.