Poile Sengupta (nee Ambika Gopalakrishnan) (born 1948) is a notable

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

n writer in English. She is especially well-known as a

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

and writer for children. Her formal first name is Ambika but she writes, and is known, as Poile. Sengupta has been a college lecturer, a senior school teacher, an educational consultant, a communication and language skills consultant, a consultant editor for a market research firm, and a teacher for Montessori school children.

Career

Writing

A number of Sengupta's books for children have been published, including ''The Exquisite Balance'' (1985), ''The Way to My Friend's House'' (1988), ''The Story of the Road'' (1993), ''How the Path Grew'' (1997)- (all Children's Book Trust, New Delhi), ''The Clever Carpenter and Other Stories'', ''The Naughty Dog and Other Stories'', and ''The Black Snake and Other Stories'' (all Frank Brothers, New Delhi, 1993), ''Waterflowers'' (Scholastic, 2000), ''Vikram and Vetal'' (2006) and ''Vikramaditya's Throne''(2007)(Puffin). ''Role Call'' has been translated into Bhasa Indonesia and ''Vikram and Vetal'' into French. She has also written ( The Lights Changed ). This short has been written in the NCERT book of civics for class 6. Her stories for children have been included in a number of anthologies like ''The Puffin Treasury of Modern Indian Stories'', ''The Puffin Book of Funny Stories'', ''Favourite Stories for Boys'', ''Favourite Stories for Girls'', ''A Clear Blue Sky'' and ''Bad Moon Rising'', all from Puffin, India, ''More Mystery Stories'' (1989), ''24 Short Stories'' (1991), both from Children's Book Trust, New Delhi, ''Sorry, Best Friend'' (1996) and ''One World'', both from Tulika, Chennai, the Target Annuals (1989,1990)and ''The Best of Target''. She has written a number of columns for children, the longest running of which, 'A Letter to You', a humour column about a 10-year-old boy Perky and his friend Raghu, ran intermittently in the weekly, later monthly, magazine ''Children's World'' for over thirty years. Another column of hers, 'Role Call', about school life, appeared weekly in the ''

Deccan Herald ''Deccan Herald'' is an Indian English language daily newspaper published from the Indian state of Karnataka. It was founded by K. N. Guruswamy, a liquor businessman from Ballari and was launched on 17 June 1948. It is published by The Printe ...

''; and a selection was published in two volumes ''Role Call'' (2003) and ''Role Call Again'' (Rupa, 2003). A third, short lived, column for children was 'Write Hear' in Midday, Mumbai. As a playwright, her first full-length play, ''Mangalam'', won the award for the most socially-relevant theme in The Hindu-Madras Players Playscripts Competition in 1993. Since then, she wrote a series of plays for both adults and children including ''Inner Laws'' (1994), ''A Pretty Business'' (1995), ''Keats Was A Tuber'' (1996), ''Collages''(1998), ''Alipha'' (2001) and ''Thus Spake Shoorpanakha, So Said Shakuni'' (2001) and ''Yavamajakka''( a musical for children) (2000). In 2008, ''Samara's Song'' was shortlisted for the Hindu Metro Plus Playwright award. Six of her plays have been published as ''Women Centre Stage: The Dramatist and the Play'', Routledge, Delhi and London, 2010. She received, in 1999-2001, a senior fellowship of the Government of India to write plays for children in English. A collection of these plays for children, ''Good Heavens!'' has been published by Puffin, India (2006. In 1991, a collection of her poetry, ''A Woman Speaks'', was published by Writers Workshop,

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 ...

. Poile Sengupta also occasionally writes short fiction. Her short story 'Ammulu' was shortlisted for the 2012 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. In October 2014, her novel '' Inga'' was published.

Acting

Poile has been an accomplished actor on stage and in film (''The Outhouse'' directed by Leslie Carvalho and ''Shaitaan'' directed by Bejoy Nambiar). She is the founder of Theatre Club, a

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

-based amateur theatre group. She has been a Member of the Governing Council of

National School of Drama National School of Drama (NSD) is a theatre training institute situated at New Delhi, India. It is an autonomous organization under Ministry of Culture, Government of India. It was set up in 1959 by the Sangeet Natak Akademi and became an indepe ...

, New Delhi. She has also thrice been on the jury of Trinity College, London, international competition of plays for young people.

References

External links

Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sengupta, Poile 1948 births Living people Indian women dramatists and playwrights Indian women children's writers Indian children's writers Indian stage actresses Indian film actresses Indian women poets Indian women short story writers Indian women columnists Indian columnists