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Return To ShopSix stories by Swapnamoy Chakraborty, translated by Chaitali Sengupta, exploring grief and gender, plus an exclusive author interview.
Bridge to Global Literature
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| Pages | 152 |
| ISBN | 9789349203983 |
Swapnamoy Chakraborty’s style spans over a spectrum of tales. From grief, to gender, there is something in every story that deeply resonates. Readers come back to his work because of his ease with language, and it is this ease that Chaitali Sengupta captures in her translations of these six stories from the celebrated Bengali story-teller. This rendition in the Six Stories Series also contains an exclusive interview with the author himself, as he delves into his beginnings as a writer, readership in the modern world, and translation as a craft.
Swapnamay Chakraborty is one of the eminent literary personalities in contemporary Bengali literature. Born on 24th August 1951, he grew up in Bagbazar, Kolkata. As he himself mentions, he grew up in a large joint family structure with streams of guests constantly arriving, which was typical of families settling from the other side of the border. He began his life as a salesman, selling matchboxes, and eventually earned a government job. He spent the last three years of his career at the Indian Statistical Institute before retiring. His literary career began with short stories in the seventies. Although one of his earliest short stories was published in Amrit, he was regularly published in small magazines and other lesser-known publications. His storytelling is immensely varied, as is evident even from the stories included in this volume. He wrote on social issues, partition, gender issues, and ecological concerns. He also wrote speculative fiction that borders on contemporary social concerns. His first novel, Chatushpathi, was published in 1992 in the Sharadiya issue of Anandabazar Patrika. With this, he established himself as a novelist as well. Since then, he has written several novels on a wide range of topics. In 2005, he was awarded the Bankim Puraskar for his novel Abantinagar. His novel, Holde Golap (Yellow Rose), a narrative on alternative sexuality, had won him the prestigious Ananda Puraskar in 2015. He has recently been awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for his novel Joler Upor Pani, which is based on the partition and its lingering traumas. He has also written several short stories about women’s conditions in society, and most of them have been anthologized in the volume Sab Galpo Meyeder (All Stories Are About Women). Swapnamoy Chakraborty also carries forward the rich legacy of Bengali flash fiction, which had already been popularized by eminent authors such as Banaphul and Manik Bandopadhyay, among others. Swapnamoy Chakraborty, a versatile voice in Bengali literature, has also been translated into English, but that is not enough. By selecting six of his stories, an effort has been made to uphold the richness of his craft. If this endeavor can generate greater interest among readers beyond Bengali, its intention will be fulfilled
Chaitali Sengupta is a writer and translator of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. Also a reviewer and journalist, her debut collection of prose poems, Cross Stitched Words, received an Honorable Mention at the New England Book Festival 2021. Her most recent poetry collection, The Crossings: Poems on War, Migration & Survival, was awarded the Runner-Up prize at the London Book Festival 2024. An accomplished translator with three published works, she received the prestigious IPPL Translation Award 2024 for Timeless Tales in Translation. Her latest publication, Across the Luminous Realms & Other Stories, is her English translation of the renowned Dutch novelist Louis Couperus. She has also co-translated Legends Speak: Bengali Women’s Narratives in Translation, a groundbreaking volume showcasing the works of three iconic Bengali women writers—Swarnakumari Debi, Ashapurna Debi, and Suchitra Bhattacharya.
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