Sibnarayan Ray

Sibnarayan Ray (1921-2008) was a Bengali thinker, educationist, philosopher and literary critic of twentieth century India. A radical humanist, he is widely reputed for his works on Marxist-revolutionary Manabendra Nath Roy, and famous polymath Bertrand Russell, commenting on Ray, once said that "... Sibnarayan Ray stands for a point of view which I consider important in every part of the world. ... His writings ably represents a more reasonable point of view than that of most writers of our time."

On 20 January 1921, Sibnarayan Ray was born to Professor Upendranath Bidyabhushan Shastri (1867–1959) and poet Rajkumari Roy (1882–1973) in Calcutta, India. His father was a thinker-writer who had published more than 50 books in Sanskrit and English. His mother too was a literary person who regularly contributed to magazines like Bamabodhini, Shibam, Antapur and Mahila. Sibnarayan started writing in his teens. He graduated from the University of Calcutta with a degree in English language and literature. He was married to Gita Ray.

He joined the City College, Calcutta, a constituent undergraduate college of the University of Calcutta, in 1945 at the age of twenty four as a lecturer in English literature. He taught there for long fifteen years. He was reader and head of the Department of Indian Studies at the University of Melbourne from 1963 until late 1980.

Ray taught at many universities around the world as visiting professor, including the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) under the University of London and the department of Social Science at the University of Chicago. He was invited to deliver lectures at many universities in France, Germany, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland and Hungary. As a visiting professor he taught courses at Clare College of Cambridge University, Goethe University in Frankfurt and at Stanford University.

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