Kaiser Hamidul Haq

South Asia has a rich tradition of Anglophone literature, which started in British Bengal with the publication of two volumes of poetry, Poems (1827) and The Fakir of Jungheera: A Metrical Tale and Other Poems (1828), by the Eurasian Henry Louis Vivian Derozio. Bengal has produced many distinguished writers in the language since, but not many of them happen to have been from Bangladesh (formerly East Bengal). Calcutta (now Kolkata) being the capital of British India during the early years of colonization (until 1911), was also the most westernised and cosmopolitan part of the country. Consequently, it became the hub of Anglophone literary activity during the colonial period, with East Bengal playing a secondary role. Unfortunately, this circumstance has not changed, in spite of a sea change in the political domain: East Bengal, which was given a separate identity in 1905 by the then British viceroy, Lord Curzon, through the partition of Bengal, became East Pakistan in 1947 and Bangladesh in 1971.