Hauntings: Bangla Ghost Stories

Balai Chand Mukhopadhyay, writing under the pseudonym of Banaphul, was a Bengali novelist, short story writer, playwright, poet and physician. He was a recipient of the Padma Bhushan.

Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay was a writer and editor of considerable repute. His novels reflected life in rural Bengal, and the coexistence of man and nature in complete harmony. He was also an erudite scholar of Sanskrit, earning him the title of 'Shastri'. He was the editor of Dipak and Chitralekha, a magazine on cinema. He was awarded the Rabindra Prize in 1951, posthumously.

Kamakshi Prasad Chattopadhyay was a well-known poet and fiction writer, both for children and adults. He was awarded the Bankim Gold Medal for his Bachelor's examinations. A representative for India at the Pen International at Venice in 1948, he lived in Moscow for several years to translate and edit the works of Gorky, Turgenev and Tolstoy.

Leela Majumdar came from an eminent literary family of West Bengal. She was one of the pioneers in the field of children's literature, having written her first story which was published in Sandesh in 1922. A prolific writer of fiction and biography for children and adults, she was honoured by the Government of India in 1963 for her book on Upendra Kishore Raychoudhuri.

Mahasweta Devi was a significant Bangla fiction writer best known for her short story “Draupadi”. She was a socio-political activist who worked at the grass root level for the landless labourers and women. In her crucial works- Bitter Soil, Mother of 1084, After Kurukshetra, Jhansi Rani, Imaginary Maps among others- one witnesses her blatant refusal of the contemporary historical material conditions imposed on women and her rebellious protest against the injustice done to the marginalized sections.

Panchkari Dey was a writer of Bengali detective fiction.

Pramatha Chaudhuri, alias Birbal, was a prominent Bengali writer. Incredibly fond of Sanskrit, his faith in the Bengali language affords him credit as one of the key figures in exploring the inherent potential of Bengali as a language for creative composition.

A poet, playwright, novelist, musician, and a painter, Rabindranath Tagore was one of modern India’s greatest literary figures. Also the founder of Santiniketan (Abode of Peace), which later became an international university with a wide-ranging curriculum, Tagore won the Nobel Prize in Literature, 1913, largely for the English version of his collection of poetry, Gitanjali.

A Master's in Bangla literature, Shishir Lahiri wrote for many eminent literary magazines like the Desh and published many novels and short stories.

Writing under the name Swapan Buro, Akhil Niyogi was educated in the Government Art College, Calcutta, and started his career as a commercial artist. He then became a story writer, first for young readers in Sishusathi magazine, subsequently in Jugantar. He has about sixty published titles including sixteen plays. He was awarded several prizes for literature including the Vidyasagar Prize by the state government.

In most of his 130 titles of fiction, Bandopadhyay dealt with the social transition of his time with immense sympathy for the poor and the deprived. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1955 for the novel Arogya Niketan and the Rabindra Memorial Prize in 1956 for Gana Debata. In 1966, he received the Jnanpith. He was also felicitated with the Padma Shri and the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India for his service to literature.