Nabaneeta Dev Sen

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Nabaneeta Dev Sen was born in Calcutta, to the poet-couple Narendra Dev and Radharani Devi .She graduated from Presidency College and took her M.A. from Jadavpur University, Calcutta, A.M with Distinction from Harvard University and Ph. D from Indiana University. She did post-doctoral research at the University of California at Berkeley, USA, at Newnham College, Cambridge University, UK, and was UGC Senior Fellow at Delhi University. Besides Bengali and English she reads several languages, Hindi, Oriya, Assamese, French, German, Sanskrit, Hebrew, etc., and has recently retired as Professor of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University, Calcutta. She has been working with the treatment of women in the world epics and the treatment of epic poetry by rural women in India. She has just been nominated as the JP Naik Distinguished Fellow at the Centre of Women’s Development Studies,New Delhi, 2003-2005, where she is translating Chandrabati’s sixteenth century Bengali Ramayana text into English with a critical introduction and annotations. Nabaneeta Dev Sen has published more than 56 books in Bengali : -poetry, novels, short stories, plays, literary criticism, personal essays, travelogues, humour writing, translations and children’s literature. Her first collection of poems “Pratham Pratyay” was published in 1959. Nabaneeta deals with a wide variety of social, political, psychological problems like the role of the intellectuals in the Naxalite movement, (Ami Anupam,1976), identity crisis of the Indian writing in English(1977), that of the second generation NRIs (1985), breakdown of the joint family, life in old age homes(1988), homosexuality(1995), facing aids (1999,2002), child abuse, and obsession, uprootedness, immigration and exile in her novels, often using women as her central characters. Her short stories and travelogues are a rare combination of fine humour, deep human concern, and high intellect, which has made her a unique figure in Bangla literary scene . Her first short story collection was “Monsieur Hulor Holiday”(1980). Travelogues like “Karuna tomar kon path diye”, “Truckbaahane Myakmahane” have become classics in Bengali literature and are getting translated into other Indian languages.. She is one of the most beloved Children’s authors in Bangla, for her sensitive, beautiful fairy tales and adventure stories, where girls are the heroes.. She also has written prize winning one act plays. Her works have been anthologised in many languages within India and abroad. She was a writer in residence at prestigious international Artists’ Colonies like Yaddo and MacDowell, in the USA, Bellaggio in Italy, the Mishkenot in Jerusalem.. Nabaneeta has been a visiting professor, and a visiting creative writer at different times at several universities of USA (Harvard, Cornell, Rutgers, Columbia, Smith College, Chicago, etc), Canada (Toronto, York, British Columbia), Mexico, England, Germany , France and Japan. She has delivered the prestigious Radhakrishnan Memorial Lecture series (1996-97) at Oxford University on epic poetry. Has held the Maytag Chair of Creative Writing and Comparative Literature at Colorado College 1988-89, represented herself and her country in many international conferences, both academic and literary, including the Festival of India USA 1986, the Frankfurt Book Fair 1993 and the Munich Book Week 2002. Has held important executive positions in International academic bodies like the International Comparative Literature Association (1973-79), and The International Association of Semiotic and Structural Studies(1989-94), been the Vice President of Indian National Comparative Literature Association, Chief editor of Bengali in the Macmillan’s Modern Indian Novel Series, Member of the Jury of important literary awards like the Jnanpith, Saraswati Samman, Kabir Samman, Rabindra Puraskar etc. She is now the Vice President of the prestigious Bangiya Sahitya Parishat. She has received many National awards and Honours from all over India, including the Central Sahitya Akademi Award the Mahadevi Verma Award, The Bharatiya Bhasha Parishad Award,The Harmony Award,and the President’s award, Padmashri. Nabaneeta lives in Kolkata, in her parental house Bhalo-Basa, where she was born, now declared a Heritage Building. Antara and Nandana, with former husband, economist Amartya Sen, and one adopted daughter, Srabasti.

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