Ballads from Bangladesh: an anthology of poems (translated by Helal Uddin Ahmed and introduced by Syed Manzoorul Islam: Dhaka: Sucheepatra, February 2009)

• Main Author: Hasan, Md. Mahmudul
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Asiatic Society of Bangladesh 2009
• Subjects: PE English; PI Oriental languages and literatures; PK Indo-Iranian
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/37466/1/book_review_ballads_from_bangladesh.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/37466/; http://www.asiaticsociety.org.bd/journals.html

Every human society has its own shape, its own meanings, and its own stories; and literature of every society has immense merit and significance because it tells us stories of the people of that society and artistically narrativizes their life and culture. It delves deep into the recess of the human mind, explores humans’ emotional geographies and describes imaginatively their love and hatred, their joys and sorrows, their hope and fear – their life. Literature excavates the psychological landscape of a people, which may not be understood completely by looking at their external activities. Litterateurs register human experiences by using their creative paraphernalia and literary implements. Literary production is not primarily driven, and its worth determined, by people’s economic status or political strength/weakness, although Virginia Woolf has a different view on that. It is a spontaneous expression of human feelings and is produced in every society, in every culture. That the literature of some countries dominates the global cultural and intellectual discourse does not necessarily suggest its superiority over that of other parts of the world. Predominance of the literary works of a particular country or language may have to do with other factors including political dominance, economic power and the currents and hierarchy of global politics.