The Bandyopadhyay family originated in the Panitar village near Basirhat, located in the North 24 Parganas district of modern-day West Bengal. Bandyopadhyay's great-grandfather, who was an Ayurvedic physician, eventually settled in Barakpur village, near Gopalnagar, Banagram, North 24 Parganas. However, Bandyopadhyay was born in Muratipur village, near Kalyani in Nadia, at his maternal uncle's house. His father, Mahananda Bandyopadhyay, was a Sanskrit scholar and story-teller by profession. Bandyopadhyay was the eldest of the five children of Mahananda and his wife Mrinalini. His childhood home was at Barakpur village, near Gopalnagar. Bandyopadhyay studied at Bongaon High School, one of the oldest institutions in British India, and was considered as a talented student. Following a first division placement in the Entrance and Intermediate Arts examinations, Bandyopadhyay completed his undergraduate degree in economics, history, and sanskrit at the Surendranath College in Kolkata. He was admitted to the master's degree and Law classes, but could not afford to enroll for the postgraduate course at the University of Calcutta, and joined as a teacher in a school in Jangipara, Hooghly.
Career
Bandyopadhyay worked in a variety of jobs to support both himself and his family before becoming a writer. His first job was as a teacher, but he also served as a travelling publicist for Goraksini Sabha, and later as a secretary for Khelatchandra Ghosh, a role that included the management of his Bhagalpur estate. He became involved with Khelatchandra, a prominent name in music and charity, while tutoring his family. He also taught at the Khelatchandra Memorial School. Eventually, Bandyopadhyay returned to his native place. He started working as a teacher in the Gopalnagar School, which he continued alongside his literary work, until his death. He wrote and published Pather Panchali while staying at Ghatshila, a town in Jharkhand.
Works
Bandyopadhyay's works are largely set in rural Bengal, with characters from that area. Several of his novels are set in Bongaon, including Pather Panchali, Adarsha Hindu Hotel, Ichamati, and Bipiner Sansarm while his Aranyak is set in a forest in Bhagalpur. In 1921, Bandyopadhyay's first published short story, "Upekshita" appeared in Prabasi, at the time one of Bengal's leading literary magazines. However, he did not receive any critical attention until 1928, when his first novelPather Panchali was published. Pather Panchali brought Bandyopadhyay to prominence in Bengali literature, and the novel and its sequel Aparajito, were subsequently translated into numerous languages. Additionally, these two were made into films by Satyajit Ray, and together with Apur Sansar, formed the highly successful Apu Trilogy. Ray referred aspiring scriptwriters to the works of Bandyopadhyay, and praised him by saying, "His lines fit the characters so well, they are so revealing that even when the author provides no physical description, every character seems to present itself before us simply through the words it speaks". His creation Taranath Tantrik was popular for the Bengali reader and the series was extended by his son Taradas.
Critical reception
has translated a few excerpts from the novel for inclusion in the anthology, The Picador Book of Modern Indian Literature. In his introduction to these excerpts, Chaudhuri wrote, "Unique for its tenderness and poetry... Pather Panchali rejects both nineteenth-century realism and social realism for an inquiry into perception and memory." The complete text of Aparajito has been translated into English by Gopa Majumdar. The novel Aranyak has been translated into English in January 2017 by Suchismita Banerjee Rai, and it has been published by Mitra and Ghosh Publishers based in Kolkata. Martin Seymour-Smith, in his Guide to Modern World Literature, describes Bandyopadhyay as "perhaps the best ofall modern Indian novelists", going on to write that, "probably nothing in twentieth-century Indian literature, in prose or poetry, comes to the level of Pather Panchali". He was posthumously awarded the Rabindra Puraskar in 1951, the most prestigious literary award in West Bengal, for his novel Ichhamati.
