Sunil Gangopadhyay or Sunil Ganguly was an Indian poet, novelist, short story writer, historian, and critic in the Bengali language. He was one of the foremost poets experimenting with new forms, themes, rhythms, and words in Bengali poetry in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1953, along with Deepak Majumder and Ananda Bagchi, he founded the Bengali poetry magazine, Krittibas. He is regarded as one of the most prolific and popular writers in Bengali since Rabindranath Tagore.
Indian poetry and Indian literature in general, has a long history dating back to Vedic times. They were written in various Indian languages such as Vedic Sanskrit, Classical Sanskrit, Ancient Meitei, Modern Meitei, Telugu, Tamil, Odia, Maithili, Kannada, Bengali, Assamese, Urdu, and Hindi. Poetry in foreign languages such as English also has a strong influence on Indian poetry. The poetry reflects diverse spiritual traditions within India. In particular, many Indian poets have been inspired by mystical experiences. Poetry is the oldest form of literature and has a rich written and oral tradition.
Shakti Chattopadhyay was an Indian poet and writer who wrote in Bengali. He is known for his realistic depictions of rural life. He was a green poet, many of his poems raised the issue of nature in crisis. Through his poems he urged to protect Mother Nature and plant trees.
Joy Goswami is an Indian poet. Goswami writes in Bengali and is widely considered one of the most important Bengali poets of his generation.
Mani Sankar Mukherjee is an Indian writer in the Bengali language, who also served as the Sheriff of Kolkata. He grew up in Howrah district of West Bengal.
Sen is a native Bengali Hindu surname derived from "Sena", the Sanskrit word for "army".
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 be 1600 years 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.
Nabaneeta Dev Sen was an Indian writer and academic. After studying arts and comparative literature, she moved to the US where she studied further. She returned to India and taught at several universities and institutes as well as serving in various positions in literary institutes. She published more than 80 books in Bengali: poetry, novels, short stories, plays, literary criticism, personal essays, travelogues, humour writing, translations and children's literature. She was awarded the Padma Shri in 2000 and the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1999.
Mallika Sengupta was a Bengali poet, feminist, and reader of Sociology from Kolkata, known for her "unapologetically political poetry".
Subodh Sarkar is a Bengali poet, writer and editor, and a reader in English literature at City College, Kolkata. He is a recipient of the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award.
Yashodhara Ray Chaudhuri is a poet residing in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. She produced collections of Bengali poetry. She was awarded the Krittibas Puraskar in 1998 by the Krittibas Patrika.
Arun Mitra was an Indian poet of Bengali, who also translated French literature.
Samaresh Basu was an Indian writer in modern Bengali literature, known for his versatility and vast range of themes. He wrote under the pen name Kalkut. Basu was awarded the 1980 Sahitya Akademi Award in Bengali, by Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, for his novel, Shamba. He won the 1983 Filmfare Awards for Best Story for Namkeen.
Alokeranjan Dasgupta was a Bengali poet who was the author of over 20 books of poetry. He translated Bengali and Santal poetry and plays into English and German, and also translated literature from German and French into Bengali. He also published a number of books of essays, and was well known for his distinctive prose style.
Chinmoy Guha is Professor Emeritus at the University of Calcutta, a Bengali essayist and translator, and a scholar of French language and literature. He has served as the Vice-Chancellor of Rabindra Bharati University and Director of Publications, Embassy of France, New Delhi. Earlier he taught English at Vijaygarh Jyotish Ray College in Kolkata for more than two decades, and French at the Alliance Française and the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture for eleven and five years respectively.
Utpal Kumar Basu was a Bengali poet and story teller.
Anita Agnihotri is an Indian Bengali writer and poet. She has been translated into major Indian and foreign languages, including but not limited to English, Swedish and German. She is also a retired civil servant. She lives in India.
Krishna Dhar was an Indian poet, playwright, writer, journalist, columnist and teacher. He wrote poetry alongside verse drama, nonfictional prose of varied nature and journalistic columns from the mid 1940s.
Abu Sayeed Ayyub was an Indian philosopher, teacher, literary critic and writer in both Bengali and English. Though born into a traditional, Urdu-speaking, Muslim family in Calcutta (Kolkata), he was so deeply captivated in his early teenage by the poems of the Indian Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore that he taught himself Bengali so as to appreciate Tagore better. Later, when he started to write, it was mostly in his adopted language, Bengali. During the initial part of his writing career, Ayyub wrote on aesthetics, religion and socialism. However, it was his philosophical and scientific analysis of creative literature - in particular the poetry and the drama of Tagore - that finally brought him wide recognition as "one of the most serious and original Tagore scholars". Ayyub is also credited with "co-editing the first anthology of modern Bengali poetry". He taught philosophy at the University of Calcutta, the Visva-Bharati University and the University of Melbourne, and edited the literary and philosophical journal Quest.
Manindra Ray was an Indian Bengali poet and editor.
