Can authorship be taught? Apeejay Bangla Sahitya Utsob answers

WIndia’s first ever Bangla literary festival, the Apeejay Bangla Sahitya Utsob (ABSU), is in its eighth year. Curated by Oxford Bookstore, this three-day literary festival is also being streamed online, keeping in mind Bengali literary fans all over the world. Eminent linguist, literary critic, academician, and actor Pabitra Sarkar inaugurated the Utsob (festival) on November 25.

This time was a little more special for Bengali literary enthusiasts, as the festival announced the launch of a Bengali little magazine corner to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Oxford Bookstore. To reach a larger audience, the bookstore’s online store is also considering distributing Bengali little magazines. Not only will this drive popularity, but will ensure ease of access, active participation, and interaction between delegates and audiences.

In the last three years, the festival has included several notable delegates. This year, the list featured the likes of Himadri Kishore Dasgupta, Ashoke Viswanathan, Rupam Islam, Sujog Bandopadhyay, Abul Bashar, Binod Ghosal, Rahul Banerjee Arunoday, Kheyali Dastidar, Debashish Deb, Mandakranta Sen, Raja Bhattacharya, Dipanwita Ray, and Tilottama Majumdar to name a few, all under the stewardship of former radio host Roy Choudhury and on the advice of Himadri Kishore Dasgupta.

Through 27 specially curated sessions on subjects like poetry, little magazines, illustrations, use of dialects, politics, youth literature, thriller, book publishing and editing, journalism, and cinema in Bangla literature, the eighth edition of ABSU also hosted a workshop on the second day on ‘How to write story, novel, and essay’. The tagline read, ‘to write is to know’. The announcement created quite a stir on social media as people posed the question of whether creative writing could be taught in an hour. 

This issue was addressed both by the host Roy, and advisor Himadri Kishore Dasgupta, who claimed they did not intend to teach writing, but to simply help budding authors by resolving their confusions about writing. The session drew a lot of attention from both online and offline viewers as questions rapidly flooded in. From ‘How to get rid of writer’s block?’ to ‘Should a writer be a reader-pleaser?’, and similar. With his profound grip on literature, Dasgupta tactfully dealt with every query, and advised that whatever the force behind a writing, the final creation should carry ample literary value. 

Oxford Bookstore founded ABSU in 2015 to honour the vibrant literary heritage of the Bangla language. The goal of ABSU is to increase visibility and accessibility of Bangla literature, develop a market for Bangla books, and foster a culture of reading and exposure to the Bangla language among young people. ABSU is an interactive platform that unites voices in modern Bangla literature from both the national and international stages, and highlights all facets of Bangla literature and literary expression, as well as how they have influenced diverse creative forms.