Hungry generation
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Hungry generation refers to a Literary movement in Bengal, launched in 1961 by Malay Roy Choudhury, Debi Roy, Samir Roy Choudhury & Shakti Chattopadhyay. This movement is characterized by expression of closeness to nature and sometimes tenets of existentialism. A movement though based in Kolkata, it has as its active members in North Bengal, Tripura and Benarus. The movement had influences on Allen Ginsberg in as much as Ginsberg's Post Indian Poetry changed forever. Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, now a professor and editor, was associated with the "Hungries."
The works of the participants had appeared in Citylights Journal, edited by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Special Issues of Magazines in USA such as Salted Feathers, Intrepid, San Francisco Earthquake were brought out during the Sixties.
The "hungry generation" known also as Hungryalism challenged the main stream Literary Genres. The group wrote poetry & Prose in completely different forms and experimented with the contents. The movement changed the Literary atmosphere of Bengal altogether. It had influences in Hindi, Marathi, Assamese, Telugu & Urdu.
The word Hungry was coined from Geoffrey Chaucer's line " In Sowere Hungry Tyme". And the philosophical background of the Movement was based on Oswald Spengler's idea of Non Linear Time of a particular culture. The span of the movement was from 1961-1965.
The autobiography of Malay Roy Choudhury is available in Vol 215 of "Contemporary Authors" published by Thomson Gale. (ISBN 0-7876-6639-4)
There are Hungry Generation Archives in North Western University in Illinois as well as Bangla Academy , Dhaka, Bangladesh.
