Lokenath Bhattacharya
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Lokenath Bhattacharya | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | October 9, 1927 |
| Died | 23 March 2001 |
| Occupation | Writer, poet, translator |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Subject | Poetry, Bengali literature, |
| Spouse | France Bhattacharya |
| Children | 1 |
Lokenath Bhattacharya (Bengali: লোকনাথ ভট্টাচার্য; 1927–2001) was a prolific Bengali writer who chose to remain in isolation. Though 15 of his books have been translated into French, only 'Babughater Kumari Maach' (The Virgin Fish of Babughat) has been translated into English. He finished his doctorate study in Paris. After spending his working life in India, he went back to France to spend the last decade of his life with his wife who is French. He has translated the poetry of Rimbaud, Henri Michaux into Bengali. He died in Egypt in a car accident.
He was born in an Orthodox family in Bhatpara, North 24 Parganas West Bengal, India. His initial training was in Sanskrit. He then went to the Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan for higher studies. After studying French in the Alliance Française in Calcutta, he went to University of Paris for his doctoral degree on French government scholarship. He immersed himself in French literature and translated Rimbaud, Henri Michaux and Descartes into Bengali. Despite his significant literary output, Lokenath never received the kind of critical attention he deserved in the Bengali literary circle. As Meenakshi Mukherjeer writes in the introduction of her English translation of the book The Virgin Fish of Babughat, "He remained a writers' writer, discussed in little magazines and exclusive literary journals, forever an outsider in the mainstream literary world of Kolkata. Apart from the unfamiliarity of his imaginative world, the fact that he spent most of his adult life outside Bengal might also have accentuated his alienation."[2][3]
Lokenath was married to France Bhattacharya who in her turn spread Bengali Literature in France.[4] France Bhattacharya, holder of a doctorat d’état in Indian Studies, is emeritus professor, Inalco, member of the Centre for the study on India and South Asia, CEIAS, and was till recently director of the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme programme for India and South Asia. She works on Bengali pre-colonial literature mainly from a perspective of religious and social history.
She has translated several Bengali novels into French such as: Le monastère de la félicité (Ânandamath) (Paris, Le serpent à plumes, 2003) and Celle qui portait des crânes en boucles d’oreilles (Kapâlkundalâ) by Bankim Chandra Chatterji (Paris, « Connaissance de l’Orient », Gallimard, 2005), Quatre chapitres (Châr adhyây) and Chârulatâ (Nasta nîr) by Rabindranath Tagore (Paris, Zulma, 2004 and 2009), La complainte du sentier (Pather Pâncâlî) by Bibhuti Bhushan Banerji, (Paris, Gallimard, 1969), as well as several fictions by her late husband Lokenath Bhattacharya, and his prose poems Ghar.
