Jibanananda Das (1899-1954) is widely recognised as the most important poet in Bengal since Rabindranath Tagore.
His strength lies in the way in which he carried the Tagore tradition forward into the spirit and idiom of a new era. The striking originality of his image and the enraptured quality of his poetry have left a deep impress on the younger generation of Bengali poets. Jibanananda is wholly contemporary and yet has a deep sense of tradition. Living so intensely in the rural surroundings in East Bengal, Jibanananda got an opportunity of knowledge of Bengali life and landscape in such a wealth of intimate detail that people of Bengla Desh have rightly found some of the most poignant and deeply personal poetry in praise of their motherland in his work. The twenty-nine poems translated in this volume represent some of his finest work.
Chidananda Das Gupta, whose translations from Rabindranath Tagore, Manik Bandyopadhyay and Samar Sen are also well-known, has spent years studying Jibanananda. His translations are among the very few from any Indian language which are enjoyable as poetry in English. His close association with the poet in his life time gives him a particular insight into many aspects of his poetry and his personality. In his introduction and in the translations, Chidananda Das Gupta reveals a rare combination of analytical ability and intense love of poetry--particularly the poetry of Jibanananda Das.
It may be recalled that in 1955, when the Akademi instituted Awards to mark out the most outstanding books, of literary merit published in any of the Indian languages recognised by the Akademi, the first book in Bengali to be selected for the Award was' an anthology of the poetry of Jibanananda Das, Srestha Kavita.
**Contents and Sample Pages**
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