Tarasankar Banerjee was one of West Bengal's most popular and prolific writers. He wrote fifty novels, over one hundred and fifty short stories, and several plays, three of which are adaptations of successful novels.
He was born in 1898 and grew up in Birbhum, a rural district distant from Calcutta. In 1916 he started his studies at Saint Xavier's College in Calcutta, but after a year was interned in his native village because of his association with young revolutionaries engaged in acts of sabotage against the British government. In 1930 he joined the Gandhian movement and was jailed for a year. Released, he made writing his full-time occupation while continuing to be interested in public service. He served as a member of the West Bengal Legislative Council from 1952 to 1960 and as an honorary member of the Rajya Sabha in Delhi from 1960 to 1966. He died in September 1971.
Tarasankar's novels and short stories vary considerably in style and subject matter. His first successful novel, Rai Kamal, published in 1934, is a short, bitter sweet love story of three wandering Vaishnava mendicants. Another critically acclaimed novel, Kavi, published in 1945, describes an itinerant poet's wanderings with a nomadic troupe of dancer prostitutes. Bicharok, published in 1958, portrays the dilemma of a judge who must pronounce verdict on a murder case reminiscent of a traumatic incident in his own life. These novels have few characters, a psychological orientation, and a terse style. Most of Tarasankar's short stories are also succinctly written, their often startling effects achieved through a controlled use of language.
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