Fantasy and the Politics of Subversion: Speculative Writing in Colonial India

Focusing on a corpus of fantasy texts written in colonial India during the late 19th and early 20th century, this book explores the origins, motivations, nature, and role of fantasy and speculative writing during a period of tremendous social and political churning. Taking stock of Bengali texts often marginalized as children’s literature or deemed unworthy of serious critical attention, Mayurika Chakravorty examines the works of authors such as Sanjibchandra Chattopadhyay, Trailokyanath Mukhopadhyay, Parashuram (Rajshekhar Basu), Abanindranath Tagore, and Sukumar Ray to shed light on how their writing offered stringent commentaries on the colonial situation whilst grappling with larger questions around science, progress, environment, social hierarchies, ethics, and morality. With a focus on how key authors and their works—largely omitted from the established canon—were influenced by diverse cultural streams from European, Persian, classical Sanskrit, and local folk traditions, Fantasy and the Politics of Subversion explores how these texts challenged dominant tropes and conventions while subverting authority, both literary and political. In highlighting overlooked writing within Indian literary history, fantasy and children’s literature studies, Chakravorty demonstrates that, in understanding these works in relation to one another, they provide evidence of compelling bodies of work produced in the context of, and in resistance to, the empire.