Bengali novels

Bengali Novel occupies a major part of Bengali literature. Though the first Bengali novel was Alaler Ghorer Dulal, but Bengali novels actually started its journey with Durgeshnondini (Daughter of the written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay in 1865. According to Ananda Sanker and Lila Ray, 'when the novel was introduced in Bangla in the middle of the 19th century, the form itself was new, the prose in which it was written was new, the secular tone was new in a country hitherto wholly dominated by religion, and the society in which and for which it was written was new’(Page 168). But some great novelists like Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Rabindranath Tagore, Tara Shankar Bondopadhyay, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay developed the newly introduced genre in such a way that ‘new’ changed into ‘matured’ through their works. Almost all these literary activities went on in full swing in Kolkata. Dhaka, On the other hand, could not participate in the early stage but literature created by and of the people of Bangladesh area later on flourished with greater success.