![]() The cover image of Those Days | |
Author | Sunil Gangopadhyay |
---|---|
Original title | সেই সময় (Sei Samay) |
Translator | Aruna Chakravorty |
Country | India |
Language | Bengali |
Genre | Historical novel |
Publisher | Ananda Publishers, Penguin Books |
Published in English | 1997 |
Awards | Sahitya Akademi Award |
ISBN | 9780140268522 |
OCLC | 39516159 |
Followed by | First Light |
Those Days (Bengali : সেই সময় ) is a historical novel by Indian writer Sunil Gangopadhyay. It was first published as a serialized novel in the Bengali literary magazine Desh . Gangopadhyay won the Sahitya Akademi Award for the novel in 1985.
The story centers around the life of Nabinkumar (character based on Kaliprasanna Singha), along with legendary historical figures including Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, the reformer; Michael Madhusudan Dutt, the poet; the father and son duo of Dwarkanath Tagore and Debendranath Tagore; Harish Mukherjee, the journalist; Keshab Chandra Sen, the Brahmo Samaj radical; David Hare and John Bethune, the English educationists; Dinabandhu Mitra, the playwright; Radhanath Sikdar, the mathematician; Bhudev Mukhopadhyay, the novelist; and others. [1]
Yugantar, an Indian television series that aired on DD National in the 1980s, was based on Sei Somoy. [2] The novel was translated into Gujarati by Uma Randeria as Nava Yugnu Parodh (2002). [3]
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee CIE was an Indian novelist, poet, Essayist and journalist. He was the author of the 1882 Bengali language novel Anandamath, which is one of the landmarks of modern Bengali and Indian literature. He was the composer of Vande Mataram, written in highly sanskritized Bengali, personifying Bengal as a mother goddess and inspiring activists during the Indian Independence Movement. Chattopadhayay wrote fourteen novels and many serious, serio-comic, satirical, scientific and critical treatises in Bengali. He is known as Sahitya Samrat in Bengali.
Sunil Gangopadhyay or Sunil Ganguly was an Indian poet, historian and novelist in the Bengali language based in the city of Kolkata. He is a former Sheriff of Calcutta. Gangopadhyay obtained his master's degree in Bengali from the University of Calcutta. In 1953 he and a few of his friends started a Bengali poetry magazine, Krittibas. Later he wrote for many different publications.
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The Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India. Founded on 12 March 1954, it is supported by, though independent of, the Indian government. Its office is located in Rabindra Bhavan near Mandi House in Delhi.
Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi is the official regulatory body of the Bengali language in West Bengal, India. It was founded on 20 May 1986 in Kolkata to act as the official authority of the language and is entrusted with the responsibility of reforming Bengali spelling and grammar, compiling dictionaries, encyclopedias and terminologies and promoting Bengali language and culture in West Bengal. Though the Akademi has no enforcement power over their rules and regulations, yet they are widely accepted by the Governments of West Bengal and Tripura as well as a considerable number of private publishing houses and institutions like the Oxford University Press and the Ramakrishna Mission.
Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay was an Indian novelist who wrote in the Bengali language. He wrote 65 novels, 53-story-books, 12 plays, 4 essay-books, 4 autobiographies, 2 travel stories and composed several songs. He was awarded Rabindra Puraskar, Sahitya Akademi Award, Jnanpith Award, Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan. He was nominated for Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971 and posthumously nominated in 1972.
Bengali literature denotes the body of writings in the Bengali language and which covers Old Bengali, Middle- Bengali and Modern Bengali with the changes through the passage of time and dynastic patronization or non-patronization. Bengali has developed over the course of roughly 1,300 years. If the emergence of the Bengali literature supposes to date back to roughly 650 AD, the development of Bengali literature claims to have 1,600 years of old. The earliest extant work in Bengali literature is the Charyapada, a collection of Buddhist mystic songs in Old Bengali dating back to the 10th and 11th centuries. The timeline of Bengali literature is divided into three periods: ancient (650–1200), medieval (1200–1800) and modern. Medieval Bengali literature consists of various poetic genres, including Hindu religious scriptures, Islamic epics, Vaishnava texts, translations of Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit texts, and secular texts by Muslim poets. Novels were introduced in the mid-19th century. Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore is the best known figure of Bengali literature to the world. Kazi Nazrul Islam, notable for his activism and anti-British literature, was described as the Rebel Poet and is now recognised as the National poet of Bangladesh.
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Khagendranath Mitra (1896–1978) was a writer for children of Bengal. Even today his writings continue to be popular among children and preteens.
Bankim Puraskar is the highest award given by the Government of West Bengal for contribution to Bengali fiction. The award was instituted in 1975 in memory of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, a famous Bengali novelist of the 19th century. It has been brought under the aegis of Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi, functioning under the Department of Information & Cultural Affairs, in 2003. The award is handed over by the Chief Minister of West Bengal.
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Nimtala Crematorium is located on Beadon Street, Kolkata, India. The crematorium is also historically known as Nimtala burning ghat, or simply Nimtala ghat. Located on the banks of Hoogly (Ganga) it is considered to be one of the holiest burning ghats in the country where the soul is said to attain moksha, ie. breaking the cycle of birth and death. So people across the country comes here for the cremation of their loved ones. It is also one of the largest burning ghats in the country, being located in Kolkata.
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Subodh Chandra Sengupta was an Indian scholar, academic and critic of English literature, known for his scholarship on Shakespearean works. His books on William Shakespeare, which included Aspects of Shakespearian Tragedy, Shakespearian Comedy and Shakespeare's Historical Plays are critically acclaimed for scholarship and academic rigor. He was a professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Presidency College, Calcutta, and after retirement from Presidency College, became Professor of English Language and Literature at Jadavpur University, Calcutta, as well as a professor of English literature at Ramakrishna Mission Residential College, Narendrapur, an autonomous college in Greater Calcutta under the University of Calcutta. The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 1983, for his contributions to literature and education.
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