Nabaneeta Dev Sen ( bn, নবনীতা দেব সেন, Nôbonita Deb Sen; 13 January 1938 – 7 November 2019) was an Indian writer and academic. After studying arts and comparative literature, she moved to the
USA
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
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
Padma Shri ( IAST: ''padma śrī''), also spelled Padma Shree, is the fourth-highest civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is conf ...
in 2000 and the
Sahitya Akademi Award
The Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honour in India, which the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of the most outstanding books of literary merit published in any of the 22 languages of the ...
in 1999.
Early life and education
Dev Sen was born in
Calcutta
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...
(now Kolkata) into a
Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
family on 13 January 1938. She was the only child of the poet-couple Narendra Dev (Narendra Deb 7 July 1888- 19 April 1971, son of Nagendra Chandra Deb) and Radharani Devi, who wrote under the pen name Aparajita Devi.
She was given her name by
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...
.
Her childhood experiences included
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
air raids, seeing people starving in the
Bengal famine of 1943, and the impact of large numbers of refugees arriving in Calcutta after the
partition of India.
She attended Gokhale Memorial Girls' School and
Lady Brabourne College.
She received her BA in English from
University of Calcutta
The University of Calcutta (informally known as Calcutta University; CU) is a public collegiate state university in India, located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Considered one of best state research university all over India every year, ...
,
and was a student of inaugural batch of the Department of Comparative Literature at
Jadavpur University
Jadavpur University is a public state university located in Jadavpur, Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It was established in 1905 as ''Bengal Technical Institute'' and was converted into Jadavpur University in 1955. In 2022, it was ranked fourth am ...
, from where she obtained her MA in 1958.
She obtained another MA (with distinction) in comparative literature from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
in 1961 and went on to receive a doctorate from
Indiana University
Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana.
Campuses
Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI.
*Indiana Universi ...
in 1964.
She then completed her post-doctoral research at the
University of California at Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...
and
Newnham College, Cambridge
Newnham College is a women's constituent college of the University of Cambridge.
The college was founded in 1871 by a group organising Lectures for Ladies, members of which included philosopher Henry Sidgwick and suffragist campaigner Millicen ...
University.
Career
Academic
Dev Sen was a writer in residence at several international artists' colonies, including
Yaddo
Yaddo is an artists' community located on a estate in Saratoga Springs, New York. Its mission is "to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment.". On March  ...
and
MacDowell Colony
MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire, United States, founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDowel ...
in the United States; Bellaggio in Italy; and the
Mishkenot Sha'ananim
, settlement_type = Neighborhood of Jerusalem
, image_skyline = שכונת משכנות שאננים וטחנת הרוח. צולם מכיוון העיר העתיקה.jpg
, imagesize = 300px
, image_caption = View of Mishkenot ...
in Jerusalem.
She held the Maytag Chair of Creative Writing and Comparative Literature at Colorado College, 1988–1989.
She was a visiting professor and a visiting creative writer at several universities including Harvard, Cornell, Columbia, Chicago (USA), Humboldt (Germany), Universities of Toronto, British Columbia (Canada), Melbourne, New South Wales (Australia), and El Collegio de Mexico.
She delivered the Radhakrishnan Memorial Lecture series (1996–1997) at
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...
on epic poetry.
In 2002, Dev Sen retired as Professor of Comparative Literature at
Jadavpur University
Jadavpur University is a public state university located in Jadavpur, Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It was established in 1905 as ''Bengal Technical Institute'' and was converted into Jadavpur University in 1955. In 2022, it was ranked fourth am ...
, Calcutta.
She was a
University Grants Commission Senior Fellow at
University of Delhi
Delhi University (DU), formally the University of Delhi, is a collegiate university, collegiate Central university (India), central university located in New Delhi, India. It was founded in 1922 by an Act of the Central Legislative Assembly and ...
.
From 2003 to 2005, Dev Sen was the J. P. Naik Distinguished Fellow at the Centre of Women's Development Studies in New Delhi.
She represented herself and India in many international conferences, both academic and literary,
and at the Festival of India USA in 1986.
Associations
She held executive positions in the International Comparative Literature Association (1973–1979),
and the International Association of Semiotic and Structural Studies (1989–1994).
Dev Sen was the Vice-President of the
Bangiya Sahitya Parishad, an academy for Bengali literature. She was the founder and president of West Bengal Women Writers' Association. She was the founder secretary and later Vice-President of the Indian National Comparative Literature Association.
She was a Fellow of the
Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain.
She was a member of the Advisory Board for Bengali, Sahitya Akademi from 1978 to 1982, as well as the Member and Convenor, Bharatiya
Jnanpith Award
The Jnanpith Award is the oldest and the highest Indian literary award presented annually by the Bharatiya Jnanpith to an author for their "outstanding contribution towards literature". Instituted in 1961, the award is bestowed only on Indian w ...
Language Advisory Committee from 1975 to 1990.
She also served as Member of the Jury of important literary awards including the
Jnanpith Award
The Jnanpith Award is the oldest and the highest Indian literary award presented annually by the Bharatiya Jnanpith to an author for their "outstanding contribution towards literature". Instituted in 1961, the award is bestowed only on Indian w ...
,
Saraswati Samman
The Saraswati Samman is an annual award for outstanding prose or poetry literary works in any of the 22 languages of India listed in Schedule VIII of the Constitution of India. It is named after the Hindu goddess of knowledge, Saraswati.
The Saras ...
, Kabir Samman, and
Rabindra Puraskar
The Rabindra Puraskar (also Rabindra Smriti Puraskar) is the highest honorary literary award given in the Indian state of West Bengal. This award is named after the famous Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore and is administered by the Government of W ...
.
Literary career
Dev Sen 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 worked with the treatment of women in world epics; she wrote several short stories presenting
Sita
Sita (; ) also called as Janaki and Vaidehi is a Hindu goddess and the female protagonist of the Hindu epic, ''Ramayana''. She is the consort of Rama, the avatar of the god Vishnu, and is regarded as a form of Vishnu's consort, Lakshmi. She ...
in a different way from how she appears in the
Ramayana
The ''Rāmāyana'' (; sa, रामायणम्, ) is a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic composed over a period of nearly a millennium, with scholars' estimates for the earliest stage of the text ranging from the 8th ...
.
Her first collection of poems ''Pratham Pratyay'' (First Confidence) was published in 1959.
Her second poetry collection ''Swagato Debdoot'' was published 12 years later.
Her first novel ''Ami Anupam'' (I, Anupam) was published in 1976 in the Puja Issue of the ''
Ananda Bazar Patrika
''Anandabazar Patrika'' (Bengali: আনন্দবাজার পত্রিকা, ) is an Indian Bengali-language daily newspaper owned by the ABP Group. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it has a circulation of 1 million c ...
''.
It is about urban middle class intellectuals who lead the youth in revolution and later contradict them during the
Naxalite movement.
Dev Sen dealt with a wide variety of social, political, psychological problems like the role of the intellectuals in the
Naxalite movement (''Ami Anupam'', 1976),
the identity crisis of Indian writing in English (1977),
that of second generation
non-resident Indian
Overseas Indians ( IAST: ), officially Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs) are Indians who live outside of the Republic of India. According to the Government of India, ''Non-Resident Indians'' are citizens of In ...
s (1985), breakdown of the joint family, life in old age homes (1988),
homosexuality (1995),
facing AIDS (1999, 2002),
child abuse, obsession, and uprootedness.
Her first short story collection was ''Monsieur Hulor Holiday'' (Monsieur Hulo's Holiday, 1980).
Her essays, such as ''Nati Nabanita'' (Nabaneeta the Actress, 1983), are considered the best of her prose writing by critic Sanjukta Gupta.
Her best-selling ''Karuna Tomar Kon Path Diye'' (The Path of Thy Grace, 1978) has an account of a solo woman on pilgrimage to
Kumbh Mela.
Her travelogue ''Truck Bahoney Mac Mahoney'' depicts her ride on a ration truck across
northeast India
, native_name_lang = mni
, settlement_type =
, image_skyline =
, image_alt =
, image_caption =
, motto =
, image_map = Northeast india.png
, ...
and
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Taman ...
in 1977.
Her other notable works included ''Bama-bodhini'',
''Srestha kabita'', and ''Sita theke suru''.
She was a well-known children's author in Bengali for her fairy tales and adventure stories, with girls as protagonist, having first written for children in 1979.
She was the chief editor of Bengali in the Macmillan's ''Modern Indian Novels in English Translation'' series.
Recognition
Dev Sen received many national and international awards and honours, including: Gouridevi Memorial Award, Mahadevi Verma Award (1992),
Celli Award from
Rockefeller Foundation (1993), Sarat Award from
Bhagalpur University of Bihar (1994), Prasad Puraskar,
Sahitya Akademi Award
The Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honour in India, which the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of the most outstanding books of literary merit published in any of the 22 languages of the ...
(1999).
[ She has also received Rabindra Puraskar, Kabir Samman, Samskriti Award,] Kamal Kumari National Award (2004), Mystic Kalinga Literary Award (2017), and the Big Little Book Award for children's literature in 2017, when the award focused on Bengali writing. She was awarded the Padma Shri
Padma Shri ( IAST: ''padma śrī''), also spelled Padma Shree, is the fourth-highest civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is conf ...
(2000), the fourth highest civilian award by the Government of India.
Personal life and death
In 1959, she married Amartya Sen
Amartya Kumar Sen (; born 3 November 1933) is an Indian economist and philosopher, who since 1972 has taught and worked in the United Kingdom and the United States. Sen has made contributions to welfare economics, social choice theory, econom ...
, an economist and academician and then a Lecturer of Economics at the Jadavpur University, who would be awarded the Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
four decades later.
She moved to Britain with Sen and they became the parents of two daughters, Antara Dev Sen
Antara Dev Sen (born 1963) is an Indian journalist based in Delhi.
Biography
Antara was born in Cambridge, England and did her schooling in Delhi and later in Kolkata and higher education in India (Kolkata) and United States. Sen also studied at ...
and Nandana Sen
Nandana Dev Sen (19 August 1967) is an Indian-born American actress, screenwriter, children's author and child-rights activist. Her first film role in Bollywood was Sanjay Leela Bhansali's ''Black'' (2005), starring Rani Mukherjee and Amitab ...
.
After her divorce in 1976, she returned to Calcutta with her daughters. She had one adopted daughter Srabasti Basu.
Her hobbies included reading, records, and travelling. In addition to Bengali and English, she could read Hindi, Oriya, Assamese, French, German, Greek, Sanskrit, and Hebrew.
She died on 7 November 2019 in Kolkata following cancer.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dev Sen, Nabaneeta
1938 births
2019 deaths
Amartya Sen
Presidency University, Kolkata alumni
University of Calcutta alumni
Bengali writers
Indian women novelists
Indian women poets
Writers from Kolkata
Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Award in Bengali
Jadavpur University alumni
Recipients of the Padma Shri in literature & education
20th-century Indian novelists
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
20th-century Indian poets
20th-century Indian women writers
Women writers from West Bengal
21st-century Indian women writers
21st-century Indian novelists
21st-century Indian poets
Poets from West Bengal
Novelists from West Bengal
Indiana University alumni
Indian children's writers
Indian short story writers
Indian travel writers
Indian humorists
Indian essayists
Indian literary critics
Indian dramatists and playwrights
Indian translators