Manik Bandyopadhyay (birth name Prabodh Kumar Bandyopadhyay, 19 May 1908–3 December 1956) is a major figure of twentieth-century Bengali literature. He authored 38 novels and 306 stories. His best-known works include Padma Nadir Majhi (The Boatman on the River Padma, 1936), Putul Nacher Itikatha (The Puppet’s Tale, 1936), Shahartali (Suburbia, 1941), Chatushkone (The Quadrilateral, 1948), Swadhinatar Swad (Taste of Freedom, 1951) and Halud Nadi Sabuj Ban (Yellow River Green Forest, 1956). He was born in Dumka, Santal Parganas. His father was a government official who was transferred all over Bengal, giving young Manik a wide exposure to diverse places, cultures, dialects, and people. He became a member of the Progressive Writers’ Association in the early 1940s, and joined the Communist Party of India in 1944. In ill health and plagued by financial problems, he died at the early age of 48. His unfailing commitment to his creative objective gave him an iconic status as an ‘engaged’ author, a ‘pen-wielding proletarian’, according to the author’s own description.
Dr Y.B. Satyanarayana has a doctorate in chemistry and was the principal of a leading college in Hyderabad for twenty-five years. He is involved in active work with Dalits, and is co-founder of the
Shahnaz Rouse teaches Sociology at Sarah Lawrence College, New York. She is the author of various articles on women, religion, nationalism and the State which have been published in South Asia, the
Gary A. Dymski is currently Professor of Economics at the University of California, Riverside. He is also the founder Director of the University of California Center, Sacramento (UCCS). His books i
Sumit Guha has a History PhD (1981) from the University of Cambridge. He is Frances Higginbotham Nalle Centennial Professor in History at the University of Texas at Austin. His previous books
