Banalata Sen (book)

Banalata Sen

1952 cover designed by Satyajit Ray.
Author	Jibanananda Das
Original title	বনলতা সেন
Translator	Various
Cover artist	Satyajit Ray
Country	India
Language	Bengali
Subject	Love, nature, time, etc.
Genre	poetry
Pages	49 (Signet Press 1952 edition), 44 (Calcutta Writers Workshop, 2000. English translation edition)
ISBN	9788175957329
OCLC	49538244

Banalata Sen (Bengali: বনলতা সেন) is a volume of poems by Jibanananda Das. During Das's lifetime, it was published twice: first time in Poush 1349 Bengali calendar(December 1942 AD) with a cover by Sambhu Shaha including 12 poems, second time in Srabon 1359 Bengali calendar (1952 AD) an enlarged version with a cover by Satyajit Ray including 30 poems. Das named the volume after the poem: Banalata Sen, one of Das’s finest poems, certainly his most popular.^[1] The enlarged edition published by Signet Press was awarded in 1953 at the Nikhil Banga Rabindra Sahitya Sammelan (All Bengal Rabindra Literature Convention).^[2] The recurring themes in the poems of this volume are love, nature, time, temporariness of life and love, etc. Above all, a historical sense pervades everything. The names that frequent in many poems are Suchetana, Suranjana, Sudarshana and Syamali and these women are deemed above or beyond women in general. In these poems, the love Das talks about crosses the boundaries of time and place and sometimes seems impersonal too.

References

1. Arana, R. Victoria (2008). The Facts On File Companion to World poetry 1900 to the Present. New York, USA: Facts On File, Inc. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-8160-6457-1.
2. Kamal, Begum Aktar (2012). "Das, Jibanananda". In Islam, Sirajul; Jamal, Ahmed A. Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Second ed.). Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.