Manoranjan Byapari
![Manoranjan Byapari](https://mayday.leftword.com/pub/media/sakshay_author/east_pakistan_1571898825_725x725.jpg)
Manoranjan Byapari
Manoranjan Byapari was born in the mid-fifties in Barishal, former East Pakistan. His family migrated to West Bengal in India when he was three. They were resettled in Bankura at the Shiromanipur Refugee Camp. Later, they were forced to shift to the Gholadoltala Refugee Camp, 24 Parganas, and lived there till 1969. However, Byapari had to leave home at the age of fourteen to do odd jobs. In his early twenties, he came into contact with the Naxals and with the famous labour activist Shankar Guha Niyogi, founder of the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha at the Dalli Rajhara Mines, who were leading a revolution to reclaim lands of the tribals from feudal lords who had captured them by unfair means.
Byapari was sent to jail during this time, where he taught himself to read and write. Later, while working as a rickshawpuller in Kolkata, Byapari had a chance meeting with the renowned Bengali writer Mahasweta Devi, who urged him to write for her journal Bartika. He has published twelve novels and over seventy short stories since.
Some of his important works include Chhera Chhera Jibon, Ittibrite Chandal Jibon (memoir), the Chandal Jibon trilogy (novels) and Motua Ek Mukti Senar Naam. Until 2018, he was working as a cook at the Hellen Keller Institute for the Deaf and Blind in West Bengal. In 2014, Byapari was given the Suprabha Majumdar Prize, awarded by the Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi. He also received the Sharmila Ghosh Smriti Literary Prize in 2015. In 2018, the English translation of his memoir, Ittibrite Chandal Jibon (Interrogating My Chandal Life), received the Hindu Prize for nonfiction. In 2019, he was awarded the Gateway Lit Fest Writer of the Year Prize. Also, the English translation of his novel Batashe Baruder Gandha (There’s Gunpowder in the Air) was shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature 2019, the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2019, the Crossword Book Award for Best Translation 2019 and the Mathrubhumi Book of the Year Prize 2020. He was appointed chairman of the newly instituted Dalit Sahitya Akademi in Bengal in 2020. Several of his books will be appearing in Bengali, English, Hindi and Malayalam in 2021.
Two of his novels will be published in the USA by the independent publisher AntiBooks Club in the spring of 2022. Byapari was recently elected a member of the Bengal Legislative Assembly.
- There's Gunpowder in the AirINR 399
It’s the early seventies. The Naxalbari Movement is gathering strength in Bengal. Young men and women have left their homes, picked up arms to free land from the clutches of feudal landlords and ...
- ImaanINR 399
Imaan entered Central Jail as an infant—in the arms of Zahura Bibi, his mother, who was charged with the murder of his father and who died when he was six. He left ...
-
![](https://mayday.leftword.com/pub/static/frontend/leftword/luma_child/en_US/images/no-image.png)
Talmiz Ahmad
Talmiz Ahmad (born 1951) is an Indian diplomat who has served as Indian Ambassador to several countries in the Middle East.
![](https://mayday.leftword.com/pub/static/frontend/leftword/luma_child/en_US/images/no-image.png)
Stanley Brands
N/A![](https://mayday.leftword.com/pub/static/frontend/leftword/luma_child/en_US/images/no-image.png)
Durgabati Ghose
Durgabati Ghose: was born in 1905 into a prosperous Bengali family. Her father Girindra Sekhar Basu was the founder of the Indian Psychoanalytical Society. She accompanied her husband on a trip to Eur![](https://mayday.leftword.com/pub/static/frontend/leftword/luma_child/en_US/images/no-image.png)
Mahmood Farooqui
Mahmood Farooqui (born 13 March 1978) is a writer and director. He is the author of Besieged: Voices from Delhi, 1857 (2010). He is a well-known performer of Dastangoi.
![](https://mayday.leftword.com/pub/static/frontend/leftword/luma_child/en_US/images/no-image.png)
Neeladri Bhattacharya
Neeladri Bhattacharya taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University for forty-one years, from where he retired in 2017 as Professor of History. He has been a Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford, and has h![](https://mayday.leftword.com/pub/static/frontend/leftword/luma_child/en_US/images/no-image.png)
P.M. Joshy
P.M. Joshy is Assistant Professor at the Postgraduate Department and Research Centre of Political Science, Sree Narayana College, Kollam, affiliated to the University of Kerala.
![](https://mayday.leftword.com/pub/static/frontend/leftword/luma_child/en_US/images/no-image.png)
Mahdi Amel
Mahdi Amel (1936–1987; given name Hassan Hamdan) was a professor at the Lebanese University and a central committee member of Lebanon’s Communist Party (LCP). He was a prominent theoretician of
![](https://mayday.leftword.com/pub/static/frontend/leftword/luma_child/en_US/images/no-image.png)
Truman Capote
Truman Capote was born September 30, 1924, in New Orleans. After his parents' divorce, he was sent to live with relatives in Monroeville, Alabama. It was here he would meet his lifelong friend, the