Subrata Kumar Das; Bridging Worlds in Canadar Sahitya. Dr Ratan Bhattacharjee

Book Review:

Subrata Kumar Das;  Bridging Worlds in Canadar Sahitya

 Dr Ratan Bhattacharjee 

In his Bengali book Canadar Sahitya  (Canadian Literature) published from Virasat Publications in 2025 from Kolkata , noted Toronto based  Bengali critic and scholar Subrata Kumar Das takes his readers across continents and climates to explore  the varied  literary landscape of  Canadian literature. This  remarkable volume opens a new cultural corridor between Bengal and Canada, two geographies united by their plural voices, diasporic sensibilities, and love for language. Das, an author and literary archivist with more than thirty published works to his credit, undertakes here a challenging but rewarding task: to make the stories, poetics, and philosophies of Canadian literature accessible to the Bengali-speaking audience of India and  Bangladesh and in a broader sense the book is a contribution to Bengali diasporic literature of the world. The book is  not an academic manual or chronological survey, but a reflective collection of essays and portraits, written with passion and clarity, combining scholarship with personal insight.At the outset, Das seeks to answer a foundational question — what makes Canadian literature Canadian? The search for a distinct identity of Canadian Literature and the analysis of its past  runs like an undercurrent throughout the book. From the early settler narratives and missionary diaries to the mature works of contemporary authors, he finds in Canadian writing a constant oscillation between belonging and estrangement. The Canadian imagination, Das observes, is shaped by geography — by the endless forests, frozen rivers, and vast skies that have bred both humility and wonder in its writers. Nature, in this context, is not mere backdrop but a living protagonist. Das’s description of landscape as “a silent interlocutor of the Canadian psyche” captures this insight beautifully.

The 268 page book has more than 35 chapters dealing with almost an equal number of writers from Canada.  The early chapters trace the evolution of Canada’s literary selfhood from the colonial to the postcolonial. English and French influences, the friction of bilingualism, and the rise of a multicultural ethos form the skeleton of his analysis. Das does not treat literature in isolation but situates it within Canada’s political and cultural history  The voices of immigrants, exiles, and the First Nations, he argues, now constitute the heart of Canadian writing.

He focused on  Margaret Atwood’s  book  The Journals of  Susanna Moodie Moodie published  in 1970 . Susanna  is a 19th century Canadian writer and Atwood in her Poetic volume divided into three sections highlighted Susanna’s  literary activities and her  publications: “  I am in a word / in a foreign language’ Atwood imagines Susanna saying ,” It was our own /ignorance we entered ‘ and at that moment Susanna is imagined to hear ,” Go back where you came from” which is a slap on immigrant life. .From Atwood’s writing we know that Susanna  had been a representative writer in pre-Canadian Confederation Age . Besides her  autobiographical book  Roughing It In the Bush (1852) she wrote two poetic volumes and also five novels  : Mark Hudlestone, Flora Lyndsay, Matrimonial Speculations  Geoffrey  Moncton  and The World Before Them. A huge book containing all her letters  Letters of a Lifetime is published. 

The chapter on Stephen Leacock , the comic writer is quite enlightening. He delved into his writings in details and discussed nicely on Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town  and Arcadian  Adventures  with the Idle Rich besides his other books including Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy, Further Foolishness Frenzied Fiction , The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice , My Discovery of England The Garden of Folly , Winnowd Wisdom Short Circuits  Humour : Its Theory and Technique , Too Much College  ,My Remarkable  Uncle and How To Write. Mr Das’s analytical ability is commendable. The short chapter on the rebel artist  Emily Carr and her books  Klee Wyck ( winner of Governor  General Literary Award ) ,The Book of Small ( translated in 20 languages and on her posthumously published books  Growing Pains, The Heart of a Peacock or Hundreds and Thousands  move the readers especially the lines that Kate Braid wrote on her “ She is poor/ I ssee now why/ She paints  with house  paints and brown paper”(P.83).  Subrata Kumar Das  is a wonderful narrator and he gives excellent picture of the Remembrance Day and  chartered out its history that began in 1918  through  the eye of Monica Mitchell. He referred to the brilliant poetic composition which John McCrae wrote in 20 minutes on one such Remembrance Day celebration “ In Flanders fields  the poppies blow / Between the Crosses  row on row…/We are the Dead,  Short days ago/ We lived . felt dawn , saw sunset  glow”. Monica Mitchell’s poem is also heart touching “ Oh you who sleep  in Flanders  fields / Sleep  sweet –to rise  anew!”.There is a chapter on Poet Robert Service whose poems are analysed in this volume. ‘The shooting of Dan MacGrew’  and ‘The Cremation  of Sam Maggi ‘from Songs of Sordo  reveal the exquisite qualities of  his poetic vision reflected in his 16 poetic volumes besides his seven fiction books. In one such poem Robert Service wrote “ There are strange  things done in the midnight  sun/ By  the men who moil for gold”Lucy Mod Montgomery the author of 25 books  and posthumously published 13 more books including Emily of New Moon, The Road to Yesterday, Alone the Shore At the Altar, After Many Days  or Across the Miles. Mr. Das discussed in this book the contributions of  Mazo dela Roche and his novels like Explorers  of the Dawn, Possession  and Delight. Hugh MacLennan  from Canadian Nova Scotia won  the highest Canadian  honour  by bagging Governor General Literary Award for five times and Mr Das offers a brilliant analysis of his masterpiece  Barometer Rising.Gabrielle Roy   is the French speaking Canadian writer whose Children of My Heart also won Governor General Award  and even Margaret Atwood wrote on him in a Literary Journal ‘Gabrielle Roy,In nine parts.’ Dorothy Livesay  is the  poet of the period between two World  Wars  and quite naturally Mr. Das focuses on her 25 poetic volumes including the poetic debut Green Pitcher and the swansong , The Woman I am. In one of her poem she wrote ,” Now  who among us will lift a finger /to declare  I am of God, Good? / Who among us / dares to  be righteous?”(Ice Age) . 

The London born Canadian poet P.K.Page composed 25 poetic volumes. After 1960 she  returned to Canada from Australia and Mexico She began with writing a novel The Sun and The Moon and later she emerged as a poet with As Ten As Twenty  and the Metal Flower which won Governor General Award. Mr. Das referred to an interesting  Canadian poet  Alfred  Wellington  Purdy known as  Al Purdy who died . at the age of 82  and a book was posthumously published ,a huge book Beyond Remembering  : The Collected Poems of  Al  Purdy’edited by his friend Sam Solecki. One poem from the volume reads : “ I was altered in the placenta / by the dead brother  before me/who build  a place in the womb/knowing I was coming”(The Dead Poet). There were poets like Milton Acorn ,Gwendolyn  MacEwen , George Bowering Irving Leyton and Eli Mandel . Mr.Das gives a graphic picture of their daily life activities as poets and friends how they stood by each other and referred to  a few anti-institutional poems of Milton:” Fool poets  call the spring green, but I /a poet know I can’t  give you to yourself –only  what I know  of myself ;that nothing  I ‘ve done, no poem stand”. A veteran poet Phyllis Webb and his poetic volume  ‘Naked Poems ‘got attention of Mr.Das in this book. Hanging Fire  was his masterpiece.  We come to know in details about Leonard Cohen on whose death  the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote “  No other artist’s music  felt or sounded like Leonard Cohen’s .Yet his work resonated across generations . Canada and the world will miss him.” In one poem Cohen wrote : I heard  of a man /who says  words so beautifully / that if he only speaks their name /women give themselves to him.”Carol Shields’s pathbreaking novel The Stone Diaries created a storm in Canada. Margaret Atwood wrote about Swan “ One of the best novels  I have read… deft , funny , poignant  , surprising  and beautifully shaped – in toral command  of  itself and its language.” The Canadian poet Pat Lowther died a premature death but he composed four poetry books which were later highly praised : “ I shall surprise you asleep/ and hold you/through all your changes / till you make me /pregnant with the world.”  

Mr Das brought in his  literary purview  the versatility of  George  Bowering who won Governor General Literary Award  for his two books  Rocky Mountain Foot and The Gangs of Kosmos.  A few lines from one of his poems “ When the seas are / high enough to /turn  us over/ we must hold / not one another/ but our position.”.It is difficult to discuss in one review article what Mr. Das focused on Canadian literature. He even focused on the translator  Sheila Fischman whose first novel was published in French  but she translated nearly 200 novels into English for the Canadian literature. Bill Bisset ,Davis Johnston, Gwendolyn MacEwen Matt Cohen , Charlotte Gray, Ven Begamudre Yann Martel ,Cathy Ostlere and many other Canadian writer are there in  Canadar Sahitya..Mr. Das himself says, he has not included many prominent  writers Michael Ondaatjee,or Nobel Laureate Alice Munro Mordecai Richler , Margaret  Laurence  ,Anne Carson or W.O Mitchel. But he is hopeful of writing on them in his forthcoming volumes . 

The Virasat Publications has done a wonderful job  by marketing the error free  book at a low cost of Rs. 550( INR) in a brilliant cover and good quality printing paper easily available in Amazon India.. Mr.Das’s gift lies in his ability to make the complex developments approachable for the general reader which will make the book a milestone of Caanadian literature in India and Bangladesh.  His prose, though written in Bengali, avoids the heaviness of academic jargon. He combines the perspective of a critic with the tone of a storyteller, and that combination makes Canadar  Sahitya a rare pleasure to read. The style is lucid, almost conversational, as if the author were inviting the reader to a long evening of literary discovery over tea in Toronto’s winter light.. 

The reviewer  of the book is  International Tagore Awardee writer and columnist Dr.Ratan Bhattacharjee, a former Affiliate Faculty of Virginia Commonwealth University . 

Email profratanbhattacharjee@gmail.com