South Asian Literature

South Asia, like no other region in the world, is a potpourri of contradicting realities. It is a region in which compartmentalisation is impossible, where boundaries are always shifting. This has resulted in South Asia becoming a region of great contradiction, hybridity and correspondingly a great source of creative and academic writing. In the last few decades, South Asian writers and academics have increasingly captured the imagination and attention of the reading public the world over. Increasingly, South Asian writers are in the forefront, challenging and defining the critical and creative boundaries of world literature.

Especially over the past few years, the stature of the South Asian artist has grown to command more and more respect and admiration the world over by virtue of the large volume of outstanding work produced. What is more impressive than either the standard or volume of the work inspired by this region, is the enormous variety in subject matter and treatment of the same. The 'South Asian reality' is constantly transformed, challenged, contradicted and re-presented by writers produced by this region; making it altogether difficult to categorise the experiences, realities and identities of South Asia.

In the light of globalisation and trans-nationalism, South Asian writing has become even more complex and nuanced. Thus what new writers and academics will bring in the future is an exciting challenge that we must explore.

South Asian Writers

The South Asian writing which has penetrated the international reading community and secured a place for itself amongst the greatest of modern writing is, for the most part, only a fragment of the writing that is from this Region. For much of what has captured the world's imagination as South Asian writing today, is actually South Asian Diasporic writing in English.

In spite of South Asia's long tradition of producing literature in literally hundreds of languages, problems of translation, publication and circulation have resulted sadly in the majority of these works not achieving circulation beyond a specific regional language. This has resulted in mutually exclusive readerships even within one country.

This exclusivity is made paradoxical by the fact that today we talk beyond nationalism and exclusivity to internationalism and globalisation. Hence, we ask again and again the question of what turns literatures of the Region will take in the future, and what our new artists will produce. While respecting the diversity of the region, it is also necessary to bring these diverse elements together to try to formulate some coherence thematically and structurally.

Breakdown of objectives and structure

The Proposed Literature Conference

It is in this light that the International Centre for Ethnic Studies, together with The British Council Colombo, proposes the organizing of a South Asian literature conference entitled Conference of New South Asian Creative and Academic Writers to be held from the 26th to the 30th June 2002. We hope that this conference will bring together different groups of new artists who will focus especially on the possible prospects for the region in the coming years.

For this purpose we have divided artists into three broad categories…
1) South Asian English writing from within the Region
2) South Asian writing in Regional languages
3) South Asian Diasporic writing

The topics under which writers will be grouped and discussed are...

The Writer and the State
The Writer and the community
Sexual Politics
Modernity
Language and Narrative form

The focus of this literature Conference is then two fold. The main goal of the conference is to provide insight into the work of new artists and academics from the above mentioned three groups. The second objective is to bring together the above defined groups of writers, in order to examine how they address particular and similar issues.

By bringing new writers of these three groups together, we will be able to look at the manner in which each group deals with issues of identity and representation in relation to the nation, in relation to the community, in the areas of sexual politics, within the trends of modernity and through the politics of language and narrative form.

Thus the five-day conference will deal with different themes and trends by new writers of today. Each day will be dedicated to a separate set of issues under which work from writers of the three different groups will be discussed and evaluated.

PARTICIPANTS