Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay

Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay was a novelist, lyricist, and writer of Indian origin. He was born in Ghatshila in Muratipur, Bengal (British India) on September 12, 1984. His family originally hailed from Panitar village in the North 24 Parganas district of present-day West Bengal. His great-grandfather, an Ayurvedic physician, settled in Barrackpore village near Gopalnagar, Banagram, North 24 Parganas. However, Bibhutibhushan was born at his maternal uncle's residence in Muratipur village near Kalyani in Nadia. Mahananda Bandyopadhyay, his father was a Sanskrit scholar and a professional storyteller, and Bandyopadhyay was the oldest of his parents' five children. The family resided in Barrackpore during his childhood. He attended Bongaon High School, which was one of the earliest schools in British India, from the fifth grade onwards.

After receiving a first-division rank in the Entrance and Intermediate Arts exams, he earned a bachelor's degree in economics, history, and Sanskrit from Surendranath College (then known as Ripon College) in Kolkata. Despite being accepted into the master's degree (MA) and Law programs, Bandyopadhyay could not afford to enroll in the postgraduate program at the University of Calcutta, and thus took up a teaching job at a school in Jangipara, Hooghly. Before becoming a writer, he worked various jobs to provide for his family and himself. He started as a teacher, then worked as a traveling publicist for Goraksini Sabha, and later became a secretary for Khelatchandra Ghosh, managing his estate in Bhagalpur. He became involved with Khelatchandra and tutored his family, eventually teaching at the Khelatchandra Memorial School. He returned to his hometown and taught at Gopalnagar Haripada Institution while continuing his literary work until he passed away.

He wrote and published Pather Panchali while residing in Ghatshila, a town in Jharkhand. His stories are primarily set in rural Bengal, featuring characters from that area. Many of his novels, such as Adarsha Hindu Hotel, Ichamati, Pather Panchali, and Bipiner Sansar, are set in Bongaon. His first short story, Upekshita, was published in Prabasi, one of Bengal's most prominent literary magazines in the year 1921. However, he did not gain critical attention until 1928 when Pather Panchali was published as a serial and later as a book in 1929. Pather Panchali brought him fame in Bengali literature, and the novel along with its sequel, Aparajito, was translated into many languages. Satyajit Ray Biographies reveal bare details about the maverick >> Read More... adapted the two novels into films, along with Apur Sansar, as the highly successful Apu Trilogy. His Taranath Tantrik creation was popular among Bengali readers, and his son Taradas extended the series.

Amit Chaudhuri Amit Chaudhuri is a well-known novelist, writer, c >> Read More... has included translated excerpts from the novel in The Picador Book of Modern Indian Literature, and in his introduction to these excerpts. Aparajito has been translated in its entirety into English by Gopa Majumdar, while Aranyak was translated into English by Suchismita Banerjee Rai and published in January 2017 by Mitra and Ghosh Publishers in Kolkata. On 1 November 1950, Bandopadhyay passed away in Ghatshila due to a heart attack. Following his death, his house in Ghatshila, which was called Gouri Kunj after his wife, has been conserved by the Jharkhand State Government. After his death, in 1951, the Rabindra Puraskar - a literary award in West Bengal, was posthumously awarded to him for his novel Ichhamati.