We know a lot of famous science fiction in English literature. Notable among them are Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus, War of the World, The Time Machine, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Mysterious Island, etc.
And Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, H. G. Wells are the pioneers in the list of writers.
Well! What is the status of science fiction in our Bengali literature? Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose is widely accepted as the author of the first successful science fiction story in Bengali.
In 189, Jagadish Chandra Bose wrote a short story called 'The Story of the Missing'. This same story is published in the book Unspoken under the title 'Fugitive Storm'.
But even before that, in 1857, Professor Jagdananda Roy wrote a science fiction called 'Venus Travel'. Which was published in 189 from Santiniketan. In 182, Hemlal Dutt's sci-fi story 'Rahasya' was published in two installments in the monthly Vigyan Darpan.
Begum Rokeya’s ‘Sultana’s Dream’ or ‘Sultana’s Dream’ is also but science fiction. In 1930, Premendra Mitra wrote a science fiction called 'Pimpare Purana'. During this time the series 'Mama Babu' was added to Bengali literature. Premendra Mitra's 'In the Land of Magic' was the first novel in this science fiction series. Then in 1948 the second book 'Dragon's Breath' was published.
Insects of Bengali literature, but ‘Professor Shanku’, it is difficult to find a reader who has not heard this name. In the sixties, Satyajit Ray published the first story written about the most popular character in Bengali literature, Professor Shanku, under the title 'Byomyatri's Diary'. However, many critics have so far refused to accept the Professor Shanku series as science fiction.
The first science fiction written by Humayun Ahmed is called 'Love for You'. He also wrote ‘Fiha Equations’, ‘Zero’, ‘Newton’s Wrong Formula’, ‘Infinite Constellations’, and many more sciences. Then many more have written science fiction in Bengali literature. Has enriched the literary repertoire. However, after Satyajit Ray, Humayun Ahmed and his younger brother Muhammad Zafar Iqbal wrote science fiction on a large scale.
We can only hope that Bengali science fiction will be much richer one day. Because, just as new writers are getting interested now, the number of readers is also increasing as expected.
Written By: Asfarur Rahman Chowdhury
0 Comments