Writing from outside

There is a substantial body of Punjabi literature written outside Punjab, mostly in Britain and Canada, and it is barely read inside Punjab.

Amarjit Chandan, in London, is among the most significant living Punjabi poets and has published in Punjabi for fifty years. Ajmer Rode and Navtej Bharati in Canada wrote Leela, one of the largest single works of Punjabi poetry. Sadhu Binning and others in Vancouver formed the Punjabi writers' circles of the 1980s.

The subject matter is different from Punjab's own: work in factories, racism, the second generation, the return visit, and the specific loneliness of a person who is from two places and at home in neither.

There is also a large body of English-language writing by writers of Punjabi origin, which is read internationally and is a different literature again.

The Punjabi writing of the diaspora and the Punjabi writing of Punjab have very little institutional contact, no shared prizes and almost no shared publishing.

The British Punjabi writing is the largest body, in English and in Punjabi, and it runs from the first generation's memoirs to writers born in Southall and Birmingham.

The Canadian Punjabi literary scene publishes in Punjabi and has its own presses, prizes and magazines, and it is largely invisible in India.

What almost none of it gets is translation in either direction. The diaspora writing is read where it is made and the Punjab writing is read in Punjab.

What we don't know

  • The size of the diaspora Punjabi publishing output, which is not catalogued anywhere.

Where to check this

Named but not linked. These are real, findable documents. This project has not consulted them for this page.

  • Published works of the writers named.
  • Accounts of the Punjabi literary circles in Britain and Canada.

This page has not yet been read through by the editor. Treat it with more caution than the rest.

How this page was written. The text is compiled from the standard published histories and reference works, not from a document held in hand. Nobody from this project has visited the place or read the archive. The list above is where a reader can go to check it, not a record of what was consulted line by line. Dates and figures are the received account. If you hold something better, write in and it will be corrected.

This is one of 39 accounts in The Kanada Years, the chapter of this site covering Punjabis abroad, from Vancouver in 1897 to now.