In a Foreign Land, by Chance

Late Nabaneeta Dev Sen was one of the prominent Bengali litterateurs of our times with more than 80 books to her name. A student of Presidency, Jadavpur; Indiana, Harvard, Cambridge, and Berkeley universities, and an outstanding academic, she retired as Professor of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University, Kolkata. Her works reflect her intellection on an amazing array of social, political, and psychological topics, under different genres like poetry, novels, short stories, plays, literary criticism, travelogues, translations, and children’s literature. Her Radhakrishnan Memorial Lecture series at Oxford University, a pioneering work on women’s Ramayanas, has started a new school of studies on Sita across the world. Founder President of Soi—Women Writers’ Association of West Bengal, she has received national and international awards, including Padma Shri, Sahitya Akademi Award, and Bangla Akademi Lifetime Achievement Award.

Soma Das is a freelance editor and translates Bengali fiction and non-fiction literary works into English. Her translations include the works of some renowned Bengali authors like Shankar, Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay, Nabaneeta Dev Sen, Gautam Bhattacharya, and Tilottama Majumder. She lives in UK.