Protiva Bose

Protiva Bose (also spelled Pratibha Basu; Bengali: প্রতিভা বসু) (March 13, 1915 – 13 October 2006) was one of the most prolific and widely read Bengali writers of novels, short stories, and essays. She has written 200 books, all of which have been commercially successful. Monolina was her first novel, published in 1940. Several of her novels have been made into successful movies. She was known as Ranu Shome before she married the famous Bengali writer, Buddhadev Bose.

Protiva Bose
BornRanu Shome
(1915-03-13)13 March 1915
Died13 October 2006(2006-10-13) (aged 91)

She was born in a village near Dhaka to Asutosh Shome and Sarajubala Shome. She was awarded 'Bhubonmohini' gold medal from the University of Calcutta for her contribution in Bengali language and literature and Ananda Purashkar. She had two daughters, Meenakshi Dutta and Damayanti Basu Singh, and a son, Suddhasil Bose, who died at the age of 42. One of her granddaughters, Kankabati Dutta, is also a well-known writer in Bengali.

Bose was also famed as a singer of popular songs. The poet Nazrul Islam, singer Dilip Kumar Roy, and Rabindranath Tagore admired her voice and taught her their own songs. She made her first LP at the age of 12 and continued until the 1940s, when she gave up singing and started writing. She was soon a best seller and publishers fought against each other for her books.

She was a great lover of animals and was paralyzed from head to toe in 1972 because of an adverse reaction to an anti rabies shot, which was necessary as she was rescuing stray dogs who had rabies.

Further reading
  • "Pratibha Basu, R.I.P." Outlook. PTI. 13 October 2006.
  • Clifford, Pat (2008). "George Oppen, Buddhadev Bose and Translation". Jacket2.
  • Sarkar, Sebanti (30 November 2008). "Treading the boards with Buddhadeva". The Telegraph. Calcutta.
  • Chowdhury, HQ (25 September 2010). "Of men and music". The Daily Star.
  • Mehta, Rini Bhattacharya; Mookerjea-Leonard, Debali (2014). The Indian Partition in Literature and Films: History, Politics, and Aesthetics. Taylor & Francis. pp. 289–. ISBN 978-1-317-66993-7.
  • Sengupta, Debjani (2015). The Partition of Bengal: Fragile Borders and New Identities. Cambridge University Press. pp. 106–. ISBN 978-1-316-67387-4.
  • Sengupta, Ratnottama (10 January 2015). "Soi Mela salutes Pratibha Basu". The Times of India.
  • Banerjee, Sudeshna (1 March 2015). "Women and word power". The Telegraph. Calcutta.


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