Renaissance and (Re)Birth(s) of Bengal in Qurratulain Hyder’s Fireflies in the Mist (1994) and Tahmima

Abstract

This article examines the meaning the notion of “rebirth” takes in relation to literary works written against a context of war and trauma. Qurratulain Hyder’s Fireflies in the Mist (1994) and Tahmima Anam’s A Golden Age (2007) explore the understudied 1971 Partition which saw East Pakistan’s “rebirth” as the nation of Bangladesh. The novels depart from the commonly teleological understanding of “rebirth.” They revisit and reassess the achievements of nineteenth-century Bengali Renaissance movements and renew vernacular arts and literatures shared in Bengal prior to its successive Partitions. As such, “rebirth” does not imply a clean break from Bengal’s death-marred past, but rather a creative recovery of the latter.