Samaresh Basu
| Samaresh Basu | |
|---|---|
| Born | 11 December 1924 |
| Died | 12 March 1988 (aged 63) |
| Pen name | Kalkut |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Ethnicity | Bengali Hindu |
| Notable awards |
Sahitya Akademi Award 1980 |
Samaresh Basu (11 December 1924 – 12 March 1988) was a Bengali writer born on 11 December 1924 (1331 in the Bengali calendar) and spent his early childhood in Bikrampur, Dhaka in present-day Bangladesh. He died on 12 March 1988.
He was awarded the 1980 Sahitya Akademi Award in Bengali, by Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, for his novel, Shamba. He won the 1983 Filmfare Awards for Best Story for Namkeen.
He would in later days recall the deep impressions that the Brata-kathas (fantastic folk-tales recited by women while performing certain religious rites) narrated by his mother left on him as a child. His adolescent years were spent in Naihati, a suburb of Kolkata, in West Bengal. His life was rich with varied experiences. At one point, he used to hawk eggs from a basket carried on his head; later, he worked for meager daily wages. From 1943 through 1949 he worked in an ordnance factory in Ichhapore. He was an active member of the trade union and the Communist party for a period, and was jailed for during 1949–50 when the party was declared illegal. While in jail, he wrote his first novel, Uttaranga, that was published in book form. Soon after his release from the jail, he began to write professionally, refusing to join the factory even when offered his old job.
When he was only 21, he wrote his first novel, Nayanpurer Mati. While it was later serialized in Parichay, it was never published as a book. Adaab was his first short story published in Parichay in 1946.
A prolific writer with more than 200 short stories and 100 novels, including those written under the aliases "Kalkut" and "Bhramar", Samaresh Basu is a major figure in Bengali fiction. His life experiences populated his writings with themes ranging from political activism to, working class life to, sexuality. Two of his novels had been briefly banned on charges of obscenity. The case against one of these, Prajapati, was settled in the Supreme Court of India which overturned, in 1985, the rulings of the two lower courts.
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