Showing all 14 books
Sunil Gangopadhyay was the foremost of Bengal’s angry but romantic young poets in the second half of the twentieth century. Throughout his writing life, he wrote a continuous sequence of love poems addressed to a mythical woman named Neera. These poems became the mantra of two generations of young women and men. From ardent, sexually charged verses of early infatuation, through the demanding and sensual rhythms of a full-blown relationship, to the mellowing ...
Each day.Rabindranath Tagore received hundreds of letters. One morning, he received a letter that left him amused. It was a letter from a twelve year old girl named Ranu who complained the poet was not writing any more stories. The tone of the letter aroused the poet’s curiosity and he wrote to her. When Madhurilata, the poet’s eldest daughter passed away suddenly, he was completely shattered. Struggling silently with his grief he went in search of ...
Set in the turbulent 1960s Days and Nights in the Forest (Aranyer Dinratri) was the second novel that a young Sunil Gangopadhyay wrote. Largely autobiographical, it is the story of a whimsical, impromptu journey that four city youths— Ashim, Sanjoy, Shekhar and Robi—take into the forests of Palamau.The four friends blithely imagine that their escapade into the wilderness will distance them from ‘civilization’ and take them closer to ...
Mandira, a girl from Calcutta, goes to London to pursue higher studies. Within a few months of arriving there, she marries Thomas Brockway, a promising young aristocrat with enviable political lineage. By the time Tom (Thomas) has been elected M.P., Mandira finds herself celebrating the silver jubilee anniversary of their marriage. Her grown-up children, Robin and Liz, are well settled in life. Suddenly at this juncture, Mandira experiences a strange emotional ...
Eighteenth-century Bengal. In the midst of feudal and oppressive times, a poet–philosopher is born who brings religions together and binds people through his songs. As time passes, his songs become part of folklore but the actual man remains shrouded in mystery, perhaps out of a habitual self-effacement that was part of Lalan Fakir’s philosophy of life. Lalan does not subscribe to any conventional religious thoughts and abjures all religious rituals, ...
The Dreadful Beauty marks the debut of Sunil Gangopdhyay s immensely popular character duo of Santu-and Kakababu that has fascinated young readers for generations. The thirteen-year-old Santu is nephew-cum-assistant of Raja Roychowdhury, aka Kakababu, a former high ranking government official. The Dreadful Beauty leads the duo to Kashmir. Kakababu is trying to discover an important relic from the first-second century AD. Which means that while everyone enjoys the ...
The sequel to the award-winning and critically acclaimed Those Days, First Light is a magnificent novel set at the turn of the twentieth century in a Bengal where the old and young India are jostling for space. Prominent among its many characters are Rabindranath Tagore or Robi, the young, dreamy poet, torn between his art and the love for his beautiful, ethereal sister-in-law, Kadambari Devi; and the handsome, dynamic Naren Datta, later to become Swami ...
Each day, Rabindranath Tagore received hundreds of letters. One morning, he received a letter that left him amused. It was a letter from a twelve year old girl named Ranu who complained the poet was not writing any more stories. The tone of the letter aroused the poet’s curiosity and he wrote to her. When madhurilata, the poet’s eldest daughter passed away suddenly, he was completely shattered. Struggling silently with has grief he went in search of Ranu, who ...
Pratidwandi is set in the Late 1960s when a sense of frustration and lack of purpose characterized the urban youth of Calcutta. There was cynicism and despair, and college students turned to communist ideology. Pratidwandi perfectly captures this mood. Siddhartha, the central character, is typical of this generation. His family had seen better days, but now with their tea estates lost, the father dead, and Siddhartha, the eldest brother, unemployed, the family is ...
This volume, a collection of ten unforgettable stories by the renowned Bengali writer Sunil Gangopadhyay, bear the hallmark of the author’s literary uniqueness in terms of content, presentation and narrative style. A master story teller, Sunil Babu’s ability to weave extraordinary tales from recent history, and in general, the life around him, has fetched him not only some of the prestigious awards of the country, but also an overwhelming popularity for more ...
'Arjun' considered one of Sunil's outstanding work is almost parallel to one of the main theme of Indian epic, Mahabharata. The novel is named after the great warrior of the epic, who happens to be the main protagonist in the novel. It centres around the colony of refuges who migrated from East Pakistan before Bangladesh was born. Similar to the Mahabharata where Arjun was engulfed by infinite sadness seeing his own relatives in the enemy line up, Arjun in this ...
Within a decade after India secured independence in 1947, a group of young poets and writers came together under the banner of a little magazine 'Krittibas', which later metamorphosed from mere banner to brand 'Krittibas', the icon for youth. This group started writing using a diction, imagery and language which were direct, confessional and at the same time very urbane. In 'City of Memories', Sunil has recalled those good old days and in a way has taken us ...