Phire Dekha: A relook at the Hungryislist movement in Bengali literature

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Malay Roychoudhury Interviewed by Zinia Mitra and Jaydeep Sarangi

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  The Hungryalist Movement in Bengal : A Conversation with Malay Roychoudhury----  Zinia Mitra and Jaydeep Sarangi  Abstract Malay Roychoudhury (1939) is an Indian Bengali poet, playwright, short story writer, essayist and novelist who founded the Hungryalist movement in the 1960s which changed the course of avant-garde Bengali literature and painting.  His best-known poetry collections are Medhar Batanukul Ghungur, Jakham and Matha Ketey Pathachhi Jatno korey Rekho; and his novels Dubjaley Jetuku Proshwas and Naamgandho. He has written more than hundred books. He was given the Sahitya Academy award, the Indian government's highest honour in the field, in 2003 for translating Dharamvir Bharati's Hindi fiction Suraj Ka Satwan Ghora. However, he declined to accept this award and others.  This interview has been executed by the exchange of e mails with the activist-author.   Q.    Allen Ginsberg in a BBC interview spells out his religious an...
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Interview with Malay Roychopudhury

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  Interview with Malay Roychoudhury, Poet of Hungryalism Mar 23, 2023 By  Evan Kennedy January 30, 2023, Mumbai In the early ’60s, Bengali poet Malay Roychoudhury co-founded Hungryalism, an artistic movement in reaction to literary and political authority. The former British Indian Empire at the time continued to face upheaval and sectarian violence following the Partition of 1947, which created the independent countries of Pakistan and India, displacing approximately 15 million people. In 1963, Roychoudhury hosted Allen Ginsberg in Patna, India, after which the Hungryalists translated their own poems for small magazines in the United States, including  City Lights Journal  (Numbers 1–3, 1963–1966), where I first encountered them. One year after Ginsberg’s visit, Roychoudhury was arrested with ten comrades and charged with obscenity. The Hungry Generation, at least in the eyes of the law, was disbanded. I joke that I’m barely monolingual. Reading the Hungryalists, I ...
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The Hungryalists : Book Review

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