When Dante Alighieri found himself banished from Florence, he would cast his enemies into the burning pits of Inferno while elevating his idols up to Paradiso to cope. John Milton’s regicidal longing to overthrow the monarchy didn’t send him into exile, but the parallels between Paradise Lost’s charismatic Satan waging holy war against Heaven and Milton’s embroilment in the English Civil War are clear. But in recent times, where exile still alters the course of not only a writer’s life but also their career, the phenomenon is written about in a way that evokes empathy from a much wider audience. With the proliferation of digital media and widespread translation serving as a gateway into unfamiliar literature, exile is no longer confined to the writer’s individual experience. Instead, modern voices continue to echo the timeless struggles of the exiled, transforming personal loss into universal empathy. 

Some of these writers are well known, while others are not. Take Tuhin Das, for example, author of eight poetry books in Bengali, visiting lecturer at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburg, and one of more than fifty Bangladeshi writers who have been exiled from the country since 2013. After leaving his sister and mother behind in 2016 due to extremist threats surrounding his previous work, he resettled in Pennsylvania and was granted asylum in 2021. Das continued to write about his home in his subsequent collection Exile Poems: In The Labyrinth of Homesickness, translated from Bengali, in which themes of homesickness, loss, natural beauty and the unknown appear. 

His poem below is one example:

10.

I go up to the river, pause,

and try to fathom where

the heart of the Monongahela lies.

It flows differently by day and by night,

just as your own lover grows beauteous

in the season of love.

Foreign rivers don't reveal much on their faces.

If I can’t read your face,

then who can?

I have seen more illness

I have seen more blood

than I have seen people's faces.

Mentioning the Monongahela river here is intentional as Bangladesh is often characterised by its natural tapestry of rivers that spread throughout the country. Das’ home city of Barisal lies on the banks of one of these, the Kirtonkhola river. Das' native body of water, even at a cursory glance, is an altogether different landscape from the Monongahela. The Monongahela river does “[flow] differently by day and by night”, turning from a midafternoon green metropolis, to a dark body of water lit up by its nightlife on either side. 

Bangladesh's Kirtonkhola, closer to Das’ first home, is a peaceful contrast to the Monongahela. The “heart” Das says he could not find in the ever-changing Monongahela could easily be seen in the setting sun reflecting on the Kirtonkhola as Barishal, a river port, has little to no looming infrastructure obstructing its sunset. This difference explains how, because of the Monongahela’s many urban features, its natural face is rendered “unreadable”. It remains a stranger to Das, who finds more familiarity in sickness and blood, hinting at the violent nature of exile and the immense loss to which those in exile fall victim to.

The twelfth poem is similarly brief but conveys a sense of homesickness that speaks to many:

12.

It's raining on the roof of the house next door.

I remember my own country—

My land is like a green, green tree.

Adjacent to silence, the rain sometimes

shows how perfectly sound modulates itself.

I wish I had a guitar. Even if I

don't know how to play it,

I could pluck its strings so sweet sometimes.

The rain on the roof is a quintessential memory of Bangladesh’s monsoon season for many; it reminds me of how rainy days in the UK would evoke for both my parents memories of rain falling on tin roofs and swallowing areas of land whole. Neither of them left Bangladesh by force, but the familiar sound definitely changes and “modulates” according to where you are in the world. For Das, the sound finds its way onto the roof of his neighbour’s house. Despite it being a sound from a season that I have yet to witness, I am reminded of how people from the same place will always long for the same things after leaving it. 

Along with an abundance of rivers comes verdant land. For me, the comparison of the country to a “green, green tree” could not be more accurate, not only visually, but also through religious symbolism. Bangladesh is a predominantly Muslim country, and the colour green in Islam holds meanings of prosperity, peace and paradise. Despite Das’s secular position, these aspects of life are all, more often than not, lost when writers are usurped from their home and forced to seek these tenants elsewhere. In addition, the second most followed religion in Bangladesh is Hinduism, in which green is symbolic of growth, revival and fertility, bringing to mind the fertile land of Bangladesh, ripe for agricultural use. Though a less obvious interpretation, the idea of losing one’s home as akin to losing a familiar paradise is clear.

The fourteenth poem calls exile out by its name:

14.

In my life in exile

the way I say 'goodbye' with love for people

is not the way I have ever said it before.

Why?

I do not know if we'll meet again.

The sense of being rejected is so cruel

I know it too well.

So when we meet,

I will accept you like

a gift I have desired, hold you

like a warm mountain spring.

For now, goodbye, my friend.

Even the act of saying goodbye is different. Maybe because it is now being said in a language that is not Das’ mother tongue, or because it holds more finality in the context of exile. There is a certain unfamiliarity and a repeated motif of the unknown that exile brings in this poem is explored through the uncertainty of whether the writer will be reacquainted with this friend again. Rejection, on the other hand, is something that is all too familiar to many, and perhaps is inevitable when learning how to integrate with a different country and culture. For the exiled, rejection goes both ways; first rejected from their home, and then wherever they try to resettle. 

The antithesis of rejection, acceptance, is much less common in Das’ poem: it seems to be a destination, something that the writer anticipates. It's a “gift” that is invaluable and rare, separated by distance and a constant string of goodbyes. Therefore, the writer is forced to climb a rocky incline towards the “mountain spring”, a source of both human contact with those he misses and the idyllic beauty of his native Barisal. The colours that appear throughout Das’ body of work, the green of his land and the red of the spilled blood he witnessed, could also be a subtle patriotic metaphor considering the bicoloured red and green flag of Bangladesh. Or it could simply be the colours that are most memorable to the writer from his past.

The theme of exile runs deeply through Tuhin Das’ work, reflecting not only his personal struggles but also the broader human experience of displacement and longing. He transforms his individual loss to fit into a universal narrative that resonates with readers far beyond his immediate context and experience. Das's reflections on his homeland, juxtaposed with his new surroundings, capture the constant feelings of displacement and persistent hope that characterise the exiled condition. His poetry, rich with imagery of rivers and rain, illustrates his enduring connection to home and relentless search for acceptance in a foreign land. 

Bibliography

Immigrant Report. “Exile Poems”. Accessed July 2 2024, https://www.immigrantreport.com/this-week/2019/exile-poems

Das, Tuhin. Exile Poems: In The Labyrinth of Homesickness. Translated by Arunava Sinha. Pennsylvania: Bridge & Tunnel Books, 2022.