Clinton B. Seely

Clinton B. Seely Biography

Clinton B. Seely is a noted scholar and litterer of Bengali literature who translated many Bengali classics to English origin. He is of American origin. He translated many works of famous Bengali writers - Ramprasad Sen and Michael Madhusudan Dutt to English and also authored software packages related to Bengali. Apart from authoring Bengali works he has also written one biopic of famous Bengali poet Jibanananda Das. Though an American he has given some significant contribution to Bengali language and has helped to bridge between Bengali and English languages. He was awarded with the prestigious Anand Puraskar in 1993, for his overall contributions to Bengali literature.

Clinton was born in US on 21 June 1941. His childhood and younger days were spent in US where he completed his studies. He studied Biology from Stanford University. In 1963, he joined the US Peace Corps and reached East Pakistan, now a part of Bangladesh. He worked as a biology teacher in the district of Barisal and slowly he got attached to Bangladesh culture and people. Upon return to US, he learnt more about Bengali literature and south civilization under the tutelage of Edward C. Dimock, Jr., a scholar of Bengali and completed his master’s degree.

With the encouragement of Bengal writer and journalist, Jyotirmoy Datta, he took up poet Jibanananda Das as the subject of his doctoral research. As a part of it he returned to Bengal in 1969 and continued with his research work. He returned to Chicago in 1971, and completed his PhD thesis in 1976 for which he was awarded a doctorate degree. He also translated many great Bengali works to English since then. He worked as a professor in University of Chicago.

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Updated: June 26, 2016