Nabanita Dev Sen

Nabaneeta Dev Sen (Bengali: নবনীতা দেব সেন, Nôbonita Deb Sen; 13 January 1938 – 7 November 2019) was an Indian writer and academic. After studying arts and comparative literature, she moved to the USA where she studied further. She returned to India and taught at several universities and institutes as well as serving in various positions in literary institutes. She published more than 80 books in Bengali: poetry, novels, short stories, plays, literary criticism, personal essays, travelogues, humour writing, translations and children's literature. She was awarded the Padma Shri in 2000 and the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1999. Dev Sen was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata) into a Bengali family on 13 January 1938. She was the only child of the poet-couple Narendra Dev (Narendra Deb 7 July 1888- 19 April 1971, son of Nagendra Chandra Deb) and Radharani Devi, who wrote under the pen name Aparajita Devi. She was given her name by Rabindranath Tagore. Her childhood experiences included World War II air raids, seeing people starving in the Bengal famine of 1943, and the impact of large numbers of refugees arriving in Calcutta after the partition of India. She attended Gokhale Memorial Girls' School and Lady Brabourne College.