Background

Literature is an essential instrument for communication that influences how we perceive the world. It has been the lens through which people understand the world, and will continue to be so, for millennia to come. Throughout history, the most significant and relevant discourse surrounding culture, communities, history, and their persistence have revolved around literature. It is the water that feeds the survival of communities and their histories. However, mainstream literature has continued to marginalize South Asian Literature—its South Asian inclusion is still lacking. It may not seem like the exclusion of South Asian authors from the canon of literature has grave repercussions, but it can.

South Asian civilization is the result of cultural traditions developed during more than four millennia of global interaction, including numerous waves of

migration, conquest, and settlement. Purposeful attempts at synthesis and unification have succeeded in establishing unique and cogent South Asian religious and linguistic traditions. The remarkable diversity of religious belief and practise, as well as regional art, dress, cuisine, and language, has persisted into the present. The exclusion of these narratives in literature sidelines the experiences themselves, marginalizing the stories of entire civilizations to serve a singular, pre-defined literary canon. The works of South Asian Literature are not as readily available to the general public since the established literary canon has chosen to ignore them. This is where the South Asian Literature Society intervenes.