Bengali literature (Bengali: বাংলা সাহিত্য, Bāņglā Sāhiţyo) denotes the body of writings in the Bengali language in South Asia. The earliest extant work in Bengali literature is Charyapada, the Buddhist mystic songs dated to the 10th and 11th centuries. Thereafter, the timeline of Bengali literature is divided into two periods − medieval (1360-1800) and modern (after 1800).
Medieval Bengali literature consists of various poetic genres like Mangalkavya, translations of Sanskrit texts, Vaishnava Padavali, biographies of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and secular texts by Muslim poets etc.
Novels and Epics were introduced to Bengali literature in the mid-19th century. Rabindranath Tagore, poet, playwright, novelist, painter, essayist, musician, and social reformer, is the best known figure of Bengali literature to the world. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. After the post-partition era, Bengali literature comprises literature of erstwhile East Pakistan and modern-day Bangladesh and of Paschimbanga (West Bengal).
Read more about Bengali Literature: Old Bengali Literature, 19th Century, Influence of Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Musicians, Bauls and Traditional Singers, Major Literary Figures in (East Bengal) Bangladesh, West Bengal Literature
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“The struggle of literature is in fact a struggle to escape from the confines of language; it stretches out from the utmost limits of what can be said; what stirs literature is the call and attraction of what is not in the dictionary.”
—Italo Calvino (1923–1985)