Maitreyi Devi

Maitreyi Devi
Born (1914-09-01)1 September 1914
Chittagong Chattagram, British Raj, now Bangladesh
Died 4 February 1990(1990-02-04) (aged 75)
Occupation Poet, Novelist
Spouse(s) Dr. M.M. Sen
Parent(s) Surendranath Dasgupta (Father)
Himani Madhuri Rai (Mother)

Maitreyi Devi (or Maitreyī Devī) (1 September 1914 – 4 February 1990) was a Bengali-born Indian poet and novelist.

Life

Devi was born in 1914, she was the daughter of philosopher Surendranath Dasgupta and protegée of poet Rabindranath Tagore. She was married to quinologist dr. M.M. Sen.[1] She was the founder of the Council for the Promotion of Communal Harmony in 1964, and vice-president of the All-India Women’s Coordinating Council. Her first book of verse appeared when she was sixteen, with a preface by Rabindranath Tagore. She wrote Rabindranath--the man behind his poetry.[2] She was the basis for the main character in Romanian writer Mircea Eliade's 1933 novel Bengal Nights. In her Na Hanyate (English title, It Does Not Die: A Romance) novel, written as a response to Bengal Nights, Maitreyi Devi describes the romance and the cultural tensions resulted from it. Given the cultural constraints, she denies claims of a sexual affair between her and Eliade during the latter's sojourn in British India.[3][4]

In 1938 and 1939 she invited Rabindranath Tagore to stay in her and her husband's house in Mungpoo near Kalimpong, which later became the Rabindra Museum.[5]

Education

She graduated from the Jogamaya Devi College, an affiliated undergraduate women's college of the historic University of Calcutta, in Kolkata.[6]

Awards

She received Sahitya Akademi Award in the year 1976 for her novel Na Hanyate.

See also

References

  1. ↑ The Better India. This Little Known Himalayan Village Was the Much-Loved Summer Retreat of Rabindranath Tagore (19 July 2016).
  2. ↑ Devi, Maitreyi (1973). Rabindranath--the man behind his poetry. Sudhir Das at Nabajatak Printers.
  3. ↑ Firdaus Azim, The Journal of Asian Studies, Association for Asian Studies, Vol. 55, 1996, pp. 1035-103
  4. ↑ A Terrible Hurt: The Untold Story behind the Publishing of Maitreyi Devi, by Ginu Kamani, accessed 30 January 2010
  5. ↑ Mungpoo.org. Mungpoo and Kabi Guru Rabindranath Tagore, Museum.
  6. ↑ History of the College
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