Prakalpana Literature is a bilingual zine by Vattacharja Chandan.
"Prakalpana" is a new form of literature and art composed of: P for Prose, Poetry, graPhics + R for for stoRy + A for Art, chetAnAvyAs, essAy + K for Kinema + L for noveL, cuLture, pLay + N for soNg. The word 'prakalpana' means proper imagination.
This new form of literature and art named 'Prakalpana' emerged out of the last half of the last century for the third millennium, (apart from the so long known forms of literature like the various kinds of poetry, story, essay, play, novel &c), which shapes up commixing prose + poetry + drama + essay + visuals like signs, symbols, photos and various artforms & platforms that the respective independent writer finds suitable to utilize beautifully, to beautize the different parts in a piece of writing, shading all the cliche taboos, inhibitions and restrictions. In these 2 on going bilingual ( Bangla - English ) zines: kOBISENA and PrakalpanA SahityA / PrakalpanA LiteraturE, apart from Prakalpana, the editors publish a new kind of poetry, namely "Sarbangin Poetry", which uses both text + visuals like signs, symbols, photos and any other artforms and platforms which the poet might need to aptly express her/his idea. The zines do not consider simply any design pattern structure or picture as poetry until and unless it is supported by abstract text and texture in a new rhythm which is not free verse as used in prevailing mainstream poetry, but is a blending of rhyming + unrhyming as of the natural flow of life in concord and discord.
Prakalpana Movement in literature dates back to 1969 when Vattacharja Chandan along with Dilip Gupta and Asish Deb started this movement in Kolkata, India with the launch of their initial magazine Swatotsar. Since then this movement, so far upto this 39th year of its existence, has sporadically published 20 issues of Swatotsar,43 issues of kOBISENa and 22 issues of PrakalpanA SahityA / PrakalpanA LiteraturE.