Creativity, Reality, and Identity - Anisuzzaman
Dhaka: International Centre for Bengal Studies, 1993, Hardback in Dust Wrapper.Condition: Good — in Poor Dust Wrapper. Heavily faded at the spine of the dust wrapper with damp-wrinkling to the upper panel and the rear flap glued to the pastedown. Pages lightly age-tanned.
Contains: Tables; Glossary;
From the cover: “Creativity, Reality and Identity is a collection of four essays written between 1975 and 1980. The collection is now offered to the reading public in the belief that none of these pieces has lost its relevance today. In the first paper, the author traces the history of endogenous intellectual creativity in the Bengal area from the fourth to the twentieth centuries and brings out their social significance. The second paper deals with the conditions of weavers bonded to the British East India Company’s Dacca Factory in the late eighteenth century, and the narration is based on the newly discovered correspondence of the Company in Bengali which throw fresh light on the subject. The third paper is concerned with the world of ideas of the Bengali Muslim writers between 1870 and 1920, and sums up their attitude to the questions of self-identity, the British rule, Hindu-Muslim relations, and various other social problems that confronted the Muslims of Bengal at the time. The last paper discusses at length the conflict between a vigorous religious attitude which was made out to be the Pakistani ideal and a genuine love for the Bengali cultural tradition of centuries — the conflict that developed in East Bengal following the establishment of Pakistan and which eventually led to the growing secular Bengali nationalism culminating in the emergence of Bangladesh.
Anisuzzaman contributes much to the history of the period he writes about by bringing out new facts and offering new interpretations. What makes these essays immensely readable is the delightful manner in which they effect that historical reconstruction.”
Size: 8¾" x 5¾". Yellow boards. 133 pages.
£38.50