From the first sacred texts..
Bhutan, a tiny confetti no bigger than Switzerland, has a population of not even a million. In order to understand the literature written there, one has to look at the history of a landlocked country wedged between the immense China and the boiling India, and realize that since its creation, Bhutan has never ceased to liberate itself from assimilation into Tibet and to forge its own identity. It all began at the beginning of the 17th century, when Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, fleeing religious persecution, took refuge in these mountainous and almost inaccessible areas. He unified the warring tribes that dominated the landscape by establishing a single legislative code. Its action is administrative and takes the form of the construction of a network of fortresses, but it is also spiritual, in this territory where several branches of Buddhism coexisted until then, and this since the 7th century. Sacred texts were the first Bhutanese literature, and these are now to be found, for example, in the National Library of Bhutan, which was built in 1967 in the capital, Thimphu, and exhibits remarkable xylographic incunabula, traditional wooden blocks that predate the invention of printing. Bhutan will struggle to maintain its independence, experience periods of retrenchment, civil wars and British protectorate. On 17 December 1907, the day commemorating the national holiday, a monarchy was decreed, which was gradually recognized by neighbouring countries, although the balance was still fragile. In 1953, the new king, Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, wanted to change his country, abolished serfdom and carried out an agrarian reform. Bhutan became a member of the United Nations in 1971. His successor, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, crowned in 1974 at the age of 19, continued the movement but decided to strengthen cultural unity by imposing a common language, Dzongkha, to the detriment of minorities prevented from keeping their customs and habits, sometimes even deprived of their citizenship. The issue was complex and eminently political; however, in practice, English, which was also taught in schools, was in strong competition with the national language
...to the timid opening to the outside world..
Bhutan is a secret country that protects itself, as evidenced by the fact that television and the Internet have only been allowed since 1999, and it is in this context, to which we must add literacy, which is still in progress, that contemporary literature is written. Although still discreet, it does exist, as demonstrated by the international Mountain Echoes festival launched in 2009, the timid attempts to create a Facebook page of the Writers Association of Bhutan (WAB) or the children's books offered by the Kuensel newspaper. The capital is seeing an increase in the number of its bookstores, although they are mainly importing, publishing houses are few and far between but are mainly dedicated to publishing school textbooks. To discover Bhutanese literature, in fact, one has to dig into the virtual world, with authors turning to self-publishing facilitated by the dissemination of digital files or the emergence of print-on-demand. Monu Tamang thus proposed Chronicle of a Love Foretold in 2015, Chador Wangmo has been regularly putting new texts online on Goodreads since 2012... In the world of theatre, a name meets a few rare occurrences, Ravi Chaturvedi, and in poetry that of Gopilal Acharya, born in 1978 in Gelephu, is beginning to emerge. It is said that he studied in Bhutan and Sweden, that his novel With a Stone in my Heart was listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2009, that some of his poems have been published in reviews, and that he is mainly the author of Bhutanese Folk Tales. This collection of traditional tales is part of a broader movement, usually the first stage in the development of literature, that of collecting folklore material. In a country that today must learn to reconcile its traditions and openness to the outside world, to preserve its language while using English as a means of facilitating contacts, fiction for the moment gives way to the desire to keep traces of what has existed, so nostalgia permeates the pages of young authors, and some biographies have met their public. However, the next stage, that of a slightly more critical look, is beginning to assert itself. Thus, in her novel The Circle of Karma, Kunzang Choden, born in 1952 in Bumthang, the first author to be translated into our language, recounts the initiatory journey of Tsomo, a little girl who, frustrated that school was reserved for boys, decided to flee to India and more precisely Bodh Gaya, one of the four holy places of Buddhism.
