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Dibyendu Palit
Born in 1939, in Bhagalpur, Bihar, Dibyendu
Palit is a major Bengali novelist, short-story
writer and poet. His published works include
thirty-six novels, twenty-three collections of
short stories, ten collections of poems and four
volumes of essays. He has been awarded several
prestigious prizes of for literary excellence,
including Ananda Puraskar (1984), Ramkumar
Bhuwalka Award (1986) for the novel Sahojoddha,
Bankim Chandra Memorial Award (1990) for the
novel Dheu, and Sahitya Akademi Award (1998) for
the novel Anubhab. Many of his writings have
been translated into English and major Indian
languages. Several of his novels and stories
have been made into memorable films by eminent
filmmakers like Tapan Sinha, Mrinal Sen and
Buddhadeb Dasgupta. Palit is also a journalist
of repute and a noted film and drama critic. For
over twelve years he was associated with
Anandabazar Patrika as Senior Assistant Editor.
Prior to that he had a successful career in
marketing and advertising, and held senior
positions in Clarion-McCann Advertising, The
Statesman, etc. He holds a post-graduate degree
in comparative literature (1961) from Jadavpur
University. He is married, has a son and stays
in Kolkata.
Santanu Sinha Chaudhuri
Born in Kolkata in 1951. Studied in Ballygunge
Government High School in Kolkata and
Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan.
Started working in 1974 at a factory in a
desolate place in rural West Bengal and moved
over to a large commercial organisation the next
year. During the next two and a half decades,
lived in Thiruvananthapuram, Hyderabad, Kolkata,
Visakhapatnam and Bangalore and traveled all
over the country and a few places abroad in
connection with work. Presently self-employed
and based in Kolkata with a happy family
consisting of wife, two children and a fox
terrier. Interested in reading, traveling, music
and furniture designing. Translating works of
Bangla fiction into English is more than a
serious hobby. So far translated Bibhuti Bhushan
Bandopadhyay's The Mountain of the Moon, being
published by Katha, Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay's
Manab Jamin, to be published by HarperCollins
India shortly.
The Faces and other stories
The Faces is an anthology of short stories by
Dibyendu Palit, a noted Bengali writer. Each of
the twelve stories selected here is evocative of
the growing isolation in an urban context. The
city of Kolkata forms the backdrop in this
collection. Some of the faces, which you will
come across in the collection, are that of a
middle-class man whose own weakness forces him
to look up to the local ruffian to protect him
against more ruffians like him (The Savior); a
housewife who feels trapped in a marriage that
ties her destiny with the runs scored by her
cricketer husband (Antara); and a mother living
out her last days in an old age home finding
escape from her alienation by surrounding
herself with imagined faces of the loved ones
who never visit her (Faces).
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