Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal Haun-Maun-Khaun: A Postcolonial Reading of the Cannibals in Some Fairy Tales from Colonial Bengal Rituparna Das Techno India University, Department of English, India Correspondence:
[email protected] Peer review: This article has been subject to a Abstract double-blind peer review process This paper offers a postcolonial reading of some Bengali fairy tales, including selections from Folk-Tales of Bengal (the 1883 collected edition by Reverend Lal Behari Dey); Thakurmar Jhuli (Grandmother's Bag Of Stories), a collection of Bengali fairy tales by Dakshinaranjan Mitra Copyright notice: This article is issued under the Majumder (1907); and Bengal Fairy Tales, a 1920 edited volume by F. B. terms of the Creative Bradley-Birt (a work by the British diplomat serving in India, which alludes Commons Attribution frequently to Mitra Majumder’s text). It interprets the symbols and stalk License, which permits use and redistribution of images used in these texts in terms of the relationship of coloniser versus the work provided that colonised. It argues that the depictions of the cannibal demons in these the original author and fairy tales have an emblematic significance akin to the expression of the source are credited. anti-colonial resistance and the postcolonial reaction to the contemporary You must give sociocultural scenarios of colonial India. appropriate credit (author attribution), Keywords: cannibal; postcolonial; fairy tales; Indian folk tales; subaltern provide a link to the license, and indicate if identity; allegory; children’s literature; nationalist movement changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.