Samar Sen

Samar Sen Biography

Samar Sen was a prominent poet and journalist of Bengal. He was fonder - editor of a weekly magazine, called "Frontier” which started publishing in the year 1968. Dinesh Chandra Sen, a well-known writer and cultural figure of Bengal was his grandfather. His father, Arun Sen was a famous academician. Samar Sen, along with Subhash Mukhopadhyay, belonged to the second generation of modern Bengali poets.

Samar Sen was born on 10 October 1916 in Bengal as the son of Arun Sen. He was born in an intellectual family who has contributed numerous academic geniuses to Bengal. He is the grandson of Dinesh Chandra Sen, a doyen of the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad. Samar graduated from Scottish Church College, the University of Calcutta. Samar Sen was dedicated to poetry and writings at the first phase of his life. Later he dedicated his full time to Marxism and journalism. He was the editor of the leftist newspaper Frontier published from Kolkata, which was banned during Emergency period of second half of 1970’s.

Like other Bengalis, he too was grown up under the heavy influence of Tagore. Yet Samar Sen was the first to 'break' with the lyrical romanticism of Tagore and introduced "modern" in Bengali verse, the other writer being Subhash Mukhopadhyay. French and English modernism had strong influence in his works. But later his poetry life was overshadowed by journalist career and throughout his life, he was dedicated to journalism. He also served as the translator in the translator program for Soviet literature and did the job in Moscow for 5 years. But in the last phase of his life he became doubtful about bureaucratic "Communism" in general.

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Updated: February 15, 2014