Sujit Mukherjee (21 August 1930 – 14 January 2003) was an

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

writer, translator,

literary critic Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...

, publisher, teacher and cricketer.

Career

Sujit Mukherjee was born in the village of Ariadaha, south of

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 ...

, and educated at St. Xavier's High School, Patna,

Patna College Patna College is a constituent state aided College of Patna University which is established in 1863 during the British Raj, is one of the oldest colleges in the state of Bihar, India. It offers undergraduate and postgraduate courses in science, ...

( MA) and the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

(PhD). He taught at Patna College, at the

National Defence Academy The National Defence Academy (NDA) is the joint defence service training institute of the Indian Armed Forces, where cadets of the three services i.e. the Indian Army, the Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force train together before they go on ...

Khadakwasla Khadakwasla Dam is a dam on the Mutha River from the centre of the city of Pune in Maharashtra, India. The dam created a reservoir known as Khadakwasla Lake which is the main source of water for Pune and its suburbs. In the vicinity of Khada ...

, and at the

University of Poona Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU), formerly the University of Poona, is a collegiate public state university located in the city of Pune, India. It was established in 1949, and is spread over a campus in the neighbourhood of Ganeshk ...

before joining

Orient Longman Orient Blackswan Pvt. Ltd. (formerly Orient Longman India, commonly referred to as Orient Longman), is an Indian publishing house headquartered in Hyderabad, Telangana. The company publishes academic, professional and general works as well as s ...

in 1970, where he served as Chief Publisher until 1986. He was a prolific writer on a range of literary topics, as well as a translator from Bangla into English.

Cricket

Despite having to wear thick glasses to compensate for his

myopia Near-sightedness, also known as myopia and short-sightedness, is an eye disease where light focuses in front of, instead of on, the retina. As a result, distant objects appear blurry while close objects appear normal. Other symptoms may include ...

, Mukherjee had a long career as a

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the ball with a bat to score runs and prevent the loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since September 2021, officially referred to as a batter (historically, the ...

in university, club and first-class cricket. He played five first-class matches as a middle-order batsman for

Bihar Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Be ...

between 1951 and 1960. He made his highest score, 33, in his first innings in 1951–52. Returning to the side for Bihar's last

Ranji Trophy The Ranji Trophy (also known as Mastercard Ranji Trophy for sponsorship reasons) is a domestic first-class cricket championship played in India between multiple teams representing regional and state cricket associations. Board of Control for Cr ...

game in 1958–59, he made the equal top score for the match, 17 not out, in the second innings in a match in Patna in which only 188 runs were scored for the loss of 32 wickets. After being dismissed for 49 in their first innings, Bihar needed 45 to beat

Orissa Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of Sch ...

and were 19 for 2 when Mukherjee came to the wicket and shared an unbroken partnership of 27 with

Satyendra Kuckreja Satyendra Kuckreja (born 28 October 1934) is an Indian former cricketer. He played first-class cricket for Bengal, Delhi and Jharkhand. See also * List of Bengal cricketers * List of Delhi cricketers This is a list of all cricketers who ha ...

, the highest partnership of the match, to take Bihar to victory. He became a noted cricket writer, "a wry observer of both the game and academic pretentiousness" who produced "five elegant cricket books".

Ramachandra Guha Ramachandra "Ram" Guha (born 29 April 1958) is an Indian historian, environmentalist, writer and public intellectual whose research interests include social, political, contemporary, environmental and cricket history, and the field of economics. ...

described them as "the finest books ever written on cricket by an Indian". Mukherjee also did radio commentary for

Test cricket Test cricket is a form of first-class cricket played at international level between teams representing full member countries of the International Cricket Council (ICC). A match consists of four innings (two per team) and is scheduled to last fo ...

between 1975 and 1978.

Personal life

He married in January 1959. His wife,

Meenakshi Mukherjee Meenakshi Mukherjee (died 16 September 2009, aged 72) was a litterateur and Sahitya Akademi Award winner. Her book, "An Indian for all seasons", a biography of historian R.C. Dutt, published by Penguin, was to be released in Delhi. Mukherjee re ...

, who had been one of his early students, was also a literary scholar. They had two daughters. They lived the final years of their lives in

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...

Sujit Mukherjee Memorial Lecture

The Centre for Comparative Literature at the

University of Hyderabad The University of Hyderabad (IAST: ''Hydarāvād visvavidyālayamu'') is a top ranking public central research university located in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. Founded in 1974, this mostly residential campus has more than 5,000 students a ...

inaugurated the annual Sujit Mukherjee Memorial Lecture in 2014. Lecturers and the titles of their lectures have been: * 2014:

Nabaneeta Dev Sen 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 United States, USA where ...

– "Translations and Multilingualism" * 2015: Indra Nath Choudhuri – "The Idea of an Indian Literature" * 2016: Sukanta Chaudhuri – "My Tagore, Your Tagore: Translation and Textual Identity"

Books

On cricket

*''The Romance of Indian Cricket'' 1968 *''Playing for India'' 1972 *''Between Indian Wickets'' 1977 *''Matched Winners'' 1996 *''Autobiography of an Unknown Cricketer'' 1997 *''An Indian Cricket Century: Selected Writings'' 2002

On literature

*''A Passage to America: Reception of

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 ...

in USA 1913–1941'' 1964 *''Indian Essays in American Literature: Papers in Honour of Robert A. Spiller'' 1969 (edited with D.V.K. Raghavacharyulu) *''Towards a Literary History of India'' 1975 *''Some Positions on a Literary History of India'' 1980 *''Translation as Discovery and Other Essays on Indian Literature in English Translation'' 1981 *''The Idea of an Indian Literature: A Book of Readings'' 1981 (edited) *''Forster and Further: The Tradition of Anglo-Indian Fiction'' 1993 *''A Dictionary of Indian Literature: Volume I (Beginnings to 1850)'' 1999

Translations into English

*''Bewitched Veil'' (Monindra Ray's ''Mohini Adal'') 1968 *''Naked King and Other Poems'' (poems by Nirendranath Chakrabarty, translated jointly with Meenakshi Mukherjee) 1975 *''Book of Yudhishthir'' (

Buddhadeb Bose Buddhadeva Bose (; 1908–1974), also spelt Buddhadeb Bosu, was an Indian Bengali writer of the 20th century. Frequently referred to as a poet, he was a versatile writer who wrote novels, short stories, plays and essays in addition to poetry. H ...

's ''Mahabharater Katha'') 1986 *''Three Companions'' (three long stories by Rabindranath Tagore) 1992 *''Gora'' (Rabindranath Tagore's novel '' Gora'') 1997 *''Modern Poetry and Sanskriti Kavya'' (a long essay by Buddhadeb Bose) 1997

References

External links

Sujit Mukherjee at Cricinfo

"Unknown cricketers"
by

Samanth Subramanian Samanth Subramanian is an Indian writer and journalist based in London. He studied journalism at Penn State University and international relations at Columbia University. In 2018–19, he was a Leon Levy Fellow at the City University of New York. H ...

"Notes from the middle"
by

Gideon Haigh Gideon Clifford Jeffrey Davidson Haigh (born 29 December 1965) is an English-born Australian journalist and non-fiction author who writes about sport (especially cricket), business and crime in Australia. He was born in London, was raised in Ge ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mukherjee, Sujit 1930 births 2003 deaths Writers from Patna St. Xavier's Patna alumni Patna University alumni University of Pennsylvania alumni Bihar cricketers Indian autobiographers 20th-century Indian translators Indian cricket commentators Indian literary critics Cricket historians and writers Patna University faculty Indian cricketers Cricketers from Patna Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Prize for Translation