Hungry generation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Hungry generation was a literary movement in the Bengali language launched by what is known today as the Hungryalist quartet, i.e. Shakti Chattopadhyay, Malay Roychoudhury, Samir Roychoudhury and Debi Roy(Haradhon Dhara), during the 1960s in Kolkata, India. This literary movement is arguably, the only movement in the history of Bengali literature that shook the roots of the Bengali literary and cultural establishment of India and Bangladesh. Due to this avante garde cultural movement, the stalwarts of that movement lost their jobs and were jailed. They had challenged and significantly changed the language and the vocabulary used by contemporary writers to express their feelings in literature and painting.
The approach of the Hungryalists or the hungry generation writers was to boldly confront and disturb the prospective reader's preconceived colonial canons. According to Pradip Choudhuri, a leading philosopher and poet of the generation,whose works have been extensively translated in French, their counter-discourse was the first voice of postclonial freedom of pen and brush. Besides the famous four of Shakti, Malay, Samir and Debi,Utpalkumar Basu, Binoy Majumdar, Sandipan Chattopadhyay, Basudeb Dasgupta, Falguni Roy, Subhash Ghosh,Saileshwar Ghosh, Tridib Mitra, Alo Mitra, Arunesh Ghosh, Ramananda Chattopadhyay, Anil Karanjai, Karunanidhan Mukhopadhyay, Subo Acharya,were among the leading writers and artists of the movement.
Contents |
[edit] Origins
The word Hungry was coined from Geoffrey Chaucer's line " In Sowere Hungry Tyme". The philosophical background of the movement was based on Oswald Spengler's idea of Non Linear Time in a particular culture. The span of the movement was from 1961-1965.The movement was launched in November 1961 from Patna residence of Malay Roychoudhury and his elder brother Samir Roychoudhury. Prof Swati Banerjee has done an M.Phil on the Hungryalist movement from Rabindrabharati University under the guidance of Dr. Amitabha Ray. It is wrong to suggest that the movement had influencecfrom the Beat Generation, since Ginsberg visited Malay at Patna in April 1963.Poets Octavio Paz and Ernesto Cardinal had also visited Malay during the Sixties decade.
[edit] History
The Hungry generation refers to a Literary movement in Bengal, launched in 1961 by Malay Roy Choudhury, Debi Roy, Samir Roy Choudhury & Shakti Chattopadhyay. This movement is characterized by expression of closeness to nature and sometimes tenets of existentialism. Although initially based in Kolkata, it had active membership in North Bengal, Tripura and Benares. The movement had influenced Allen Ginsberg as much as it influenced American poetry through the Beat poets who visited Calcutta, Patna, Chaibasa And Benaras during the Sixties decade. Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, now a professor and editor, was associated with the Hungry Generation movement. Shakti Chattopadhyay, Sandipan Chattopadhyay, Saileshwar Ghosh, Subhas Gosh left the movement in 1964. More than 100 manifestoes were issued during 1961-65. Malay's poems have been published by Prof P.Lal from his Writers Workshop publication. Prof Howard McCord had published Malay Roychoudhury's controversial poem [Stark Electric Jesus] from Washington State University. This poem has reached cult status and has been translated in several languages of the world.
[edit] Impact
The works of these participants appeared in Citylights Journal , edited by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and in special issues of American magazines like Kulchur edited by Lita Hornik, Klactoveedsedsteen edited by Carl Weissner, Elcorno Emplunado edited by Margaret Randall, Evergreen Review Review edited by Barney Rosset,Salted Feathers, Intrepid, and San Francisco Earthquake, during the Sixties.
The Hungry Generation also known as Hungryalism challenged the mainstream literary genres. The group wrote poetry and prose in completely different forms and experimented with the contents. The movement changed the literary atmosphere of Bengal altogether. It had influences in Hindi, Marathi, Assamese, Telugu & Urdu literatures.
[edit] Sources
The autobiography of Malay Roy Choudhury is available in Vol 215 of "Contemporary Authors" published by Thomson Gale. (ISBN 0-7876-6639-4) There are Hungry Generation Archives in Northwestern University in Illinois as well as Bangla Academy in Dhaka, Bangladesh.At Kolkata the Little Magazine Library and Reasearch Centre run by Sandip Dutta has a separate section on the Hungryalist publications as well as trial papers of the famous Hungry Generation case in which some of the collegues of Malay had turned against the movement and gave undertakings to have withdrawn from the movement.
