Question

The earliest novel was written in which of the following languages?
A) Tamil
B) Hindi
C) Bengali
D) Telugu

Answer 1

Hint: Hana Catherine Mullens was a leader of zenana missions. She is setting up a school for girls and writing Karuna O Phulmonir Bibaran which is arguably the first novel in the above given language.

Complete answer:
 Hana Catherine Mullens was a Christian missionary, translator, educator, and writer. She spent most of her life in Calcutta(now Kolkata, West Bengal). At that time, women's authorship of the novel was banned. People raise their voices against women's authorship.

Because of this condition, she stated that he had completed the novel Karuna O Phulmonir Bibaran in secret in 1852. The novel is written about the two characters, Phulmani and Karuna in the Bengali language. A great place in Indian literature is occupied by Bengali novels. The earliest Indian novel was written in the Bengali language. The novel Durgesh Nandini was published in 1865 written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. Kapalkundala was one of his major publications. He was a very famous Bengali writer and was a renowned novelist. He was also the author of ‘Anandamath’ which was published in 1882.

 The book is written in Bengali and later has been translated into various languages. The book gives a lot of knowledge about the scenario of that time and is written with a patriotic viewpoint. A large number of gems in the field of literature have come from Bengal like Rabindranath Tagore and many more.

Thus, the answer is option C i.e, Bengali.

Note: Karuna O Phulmonir Bibaran was the first Bengali novel written by Hana Catherine Mullens in 1852 but the actual journey of Bengali novel started with Durgesh Nandini which was published in 1865 written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee.