Sunil Gangopadhyay

Sunil Gangopadhyay Biography

Sunil Gangopadhyay, also known as Sunil Ganguly was an accomplished writer belonging to Bengali language. He also wrote using his pen names, Nil Lohit, Sanatan Pathak, and Nil Upadhyay. He is known as a poet as well as a novelist. He created the Bengali fictional character ‘Kakababu’ and wrote a series of books for children. His novel Sei Samaya earned him Sahitya academy award for the year 1985. He passed away on 23 October 2012 in Kolkata aged 78. He was the founder editor of Krittibas, a seminal poetry magazine which promoted budding talents. He has also served as the Vice President and President of Sahitya Academy.

He was born on 7 September 1934 in Faridpur, Bengal of British India. His education was completed at different colleges affiliated to University of Calcutta. He took Master’s in Bengali in 1954. He married Swati Bandopadhyay in 1967 and a son was born to the couple the same year. He started a seminal poetry magazine Krittibas in 1953 and served as it editor too. Later he regularly wrote for various publications of the Ananda Bazar group. This prolific writer has authored more than 200 books belonging to different genres and he loved poetry most. His Nikhilesh and Neera series of poems are still extremely popular.

His first novel was Atmaprakash published in 1965. Though it received critics’ appreciation, it invited a few controversies too. The novel was published in the literary magazine, Desh. It was for the first time a newcomer’s work got published in this prestigious magazine. Sei Somoy is his historical fiction work. Bankim Puraskar (1982), and the Ananda Puraskar (1972 and 1989) are the major honors received by him. Satyajit Ray’s Pratidwandi and Aranyer Din Ratri are based on the works of Ganguly. Shyamaprasad’s Malayalam film Arike (2012), starring Dileep and Mamta Mohandas was based on his Bengali short story 'Megh Brishti Alo'. He made one more movie based on Ganguly’s work. National award winning 'Ore Kadal' in 2007 was based on Ganguly’s novel 'Hirek Deepti'.

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Updated: June 17, 2014