Author: Goutam Karmakar, Department of English, University of Hyderabad - Google Scholar, ResearchGate

Abstract: »The narrative of gender-based violence during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War can be read as a cohesive narrative of emotional turmoil and historical facts. Women and girls ranging in age from seven to seventy-five were raped, sexually assaulted, physically abused, and even gang-raped by military personnel, and they were either murdered or abducted to work as sex slaves for army officials and their troops throughout the war. Following the war, the new Bangladeshi state bestowed on these women the title of birangona, or war heroine, and engaged in a range of socioeconomic activities aimed at rehabilitating and resettling them into mainstream society. However, the oppression of women was quickly followed by stigma, social dehumanization, and the exclusion of these rape survivors. Literary narratives written by Bangladeshi women writers about the traumatizing events that occurred during and after nine months of brutal violence, fear, and panic take a variety of forms but are primarily concerned with the anguish, suffering, and post-war identity crisis of those raped women of war. Rokter Okhor (1978), translated into English by Arunava Sinha as Letters of Blood (2016), is one such novel that vividly depicts the harrowing impact of rape, the trauma endured by a rape survivor, and the resistance of a rape survivor through the character of Yasmin. By focusing on Yasmin's pathetic plight, the chapters demonstrate how rape is used as a weapon of war during the Liberation War and how Yasmin tolerates her existence as a prostitute after being raped and placed in an unregistered brothel in the fictional place of Golapipatti, Bangladesh. Additionally, the chapter demonstrates how Yasmin not only resists but also stirs up the seeds of revolution among other prostitutes in that brothel in Golapipatti.« (Source: Taylor & Francis Online)

Contents:

	Post-Partition, Liberation War of Bangladesh, and Genocide (p. 103)
	Contextualizing the Discourse on Birangonas (p. 105)
	Rape and the Post-war Period: Yasmin’s Acceptance of Reality (p. 107)
	On Being a Prostitute: Yasmin at Golapipatti (p. 110)
	On Being Assertive: The Resistance of Yasmin (p. 114)
	Conclusion: Spreading Seeds of Revolution – Transaction and Yasmin’s Body (p. 117)
	References (p. 119)

Wikipedia: History of Asia: History of Bangladesh | Literature: Bengali literature / Rizia Rahman | War: Bangladesh Liberation War / Birangana, Rape during the Bangladesh Liberation War