Atin Bandyopadhyay

Atin Bandyopadhyay or Atin Banerjee (1934–2019) was an Indian writer of Bengali literature. He was born in 1934 in a Rarhi Kulin Brahmin family from Sammandi, Bikrampur, Dhaka. He spent his childhood in a joint family set-up in the then East Bengal of undivided India and studied in Sonar Gaon Panam School. Following the Partition, he migrated to India. He earned his undergraduate degree in commerce in 1956 and subsequently earned a teacher's training degree, all from the University of Calcutta. He took various jobs, including; as a sailor, truck-cleaner and primary school teacher. Also he became headmaster of a senior basic school. He became the head master of Satui Rajendra Narayan High School which is situated near the Chowrigacha Railway Station in the Murshidabad district. Bandyopadhyay settled permanently in Kolkata in 1986. Here also he took on various jobs like factory manager, publication advisor and lastly journalist. Bandyopadhyay's first story was published in the magazine Abasar of Berhampore. He later penned many works, but, his masterpiece is considered to be a four-part tetralogy on the Partition; Nilkantha Pakhir Khonje,"Manusher Gharbari" Aloukik Jalajan and Ishwarer Bagan. Another famous writer of Bengal, Syed Mustafa Siraj has compared Nilkantha Pakhir Khonje, with Greek tragedies and also found it tuned with the core spirit of Bengali literature like Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay's Pather Panchali.