Premendra Mitra | |
---|---|
Born | Varanasi, United Provinces, British India (now in Uttar Pradesh, India) | 4 September 1904
Died | 2 May 1988 Kolkata, West Bengal, India | (aged 83)
Occupation | Poet, writer, director |
Nationality | Indian |
Alma mater | South Suburban School (Main), Scottish Church College, Asutosh College |
Genre | Science fiction, Ghost stories, Rhymes, Detective fiction, Fairytale, Coming-of-age story |
Literary movement | Kallol, Little magazine movement |
Notable awards | Rabindra Puraskar Padma Shri |
Spouse | Beena Mitra |
Premendra Mitra (4 September 1904 – 3 May 1988)[1][2][3] was an Indian poet, writer and film director in the Bengali language. He was also a practitioner of Bengali science fiction. His critique of humanity led him to believe that for it to survive, human beings had to "forget their differences and be united".[4]
Premendra Mitra was born on 4 September 1904 at his father's workplace Varanasi. His ancestral house was at Rajpur in the district of South 24 Parganas of West Bengal.[5] He belonged to the renowned Mitra family of Konnagar (in Hooghly district, West Bengal).[5][6] His father's name was Gyanendranath Mitra and his mother was Suhasini Debi. He lost his mother at an early age.[5][6]
Premendra Mitra was born in Varanasi, India where his father Gyanendranath Mitra was an employee of the Indian Railways and because of that he had the opportunity to travel to many places in India. Having lost his mother, who died during his childhood, he was brought up by his grandparents in Uttar Pradesh and spent his later life in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and Dhaka. He was a student of South Suburban School (Main) and enrolled for a BA at the Scottish Church College in Calcutta which he left prematurely to study[citation needed] agriculture in Santiniketan with a friend of Rabindranath Tagore, Leonard Elmhirst. Because it did not hold his interest, he returned to education first on an undergraduate course in Dhaka and in 1925 at Asutosh College in Calcutta where he assisted the research of Dinesh Chandra Sen.[7] In particular, his creation of the character of GhanaDa [ঘনাদা] (meaning: 'Elder brother Ghana' in Bengali) won him public recognition.[8]