Epidemic in Bengali and International Literature : The past and the present/ বাংলা ও আন্তর্জাতিক সাহিত্যে মহামারি : সেকাল ও একাল

Abstract

A walk through the history tells us that nearly after every century there have been evidences of epidemics and pandemics across the world and how it affected the lives of people, health, economy, education and the overall social system. COVID-19 pandemic like other pandemics has been reflected through the literature also. This paper focuses on the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on literature. It will try to analyse the literature in the phase of COVID-19 with special references to the bengali short stories, drama and also try to compare with some other literary works on various pandemics. The major literary works are taken as examples are ‘The Plague’ by Albert Camus, ‘Love in the time of Cholera’ by Gabriel García Márquez, ‘A journal of the Plague year’ by Daniel Defoe, ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ by Edger Allan Poe.

          There has been clear efforts in writings to bring out the misery caused by the pandemic and how it affected people and their livelihoods. Classic and contemporary writings not only provide an insight, but it also allows a fair portrait of the losses and people's efforts to move forward.