Paper short abstract:

Uncanny encounters with demons and man-eaters feature in premodern Bengali folk literature. This paper investigates how these, along with witch-crafting tantriks and other uncanny characters, make their way into modern Bengali children's literature and popular horror fiction and films.

Paper long abstract:

The man-hunting demon, with his notoriously nasalised pronunciation of Bengali rhymes expressing that he is smelling the presence of humans, is a stock feature in Bengali folk tales (rupkatha). On the one hand, by way of a typical modern readaptation of folk heritage, these demons make it into quite a few Bengali twentieth century children's classics. Simultaneously, on the other, newly developing popular horror fiction also appears to draw heavily on premodern motifs such as the evil tantrik. This paper will attempt to scan the production of horror fiction (with occasional glimpses into comic books and films) and sketch the trajectory of "modernising horror".