Bondopaddhai, Manik

Bondopaddhai, Manik 

(pseudonym of Prodobh Kumar). Born 1908 in the village of Malbodi near Dacca; died Dec. 3, 1956, in Calcutta. Indian writer. Wrote in Bengali. From 1945 a member of the All-India Association of Progressive Writers. Author of 40 novels and some 200 short stories.

In his early writings, Bondopaddhai sketched the life of petit-bourgeois circles—for example, in the collection of stories Auntie Otoshi (1935) and the novel Puppets (1936). The themes of his short stories are hunger in Bengal and the struggle of peasants for their rights (the collections Forgery, 1944, and Today and the Day Before Yesterday, 1946). Bondopaddhai is an advocate of friendship between Hindus and Muslims (the collections Penny Wages, 1948, and Big and Small, 1948). In his later works—the collection Situation (1946) and the novels Dearer Than Gold (1951), Side by Side (1952), and The Yellow River and the Green Forest (1956)— Bondopaddhai turned to new heroes: the workers and peasants.

WORKS

In Russian translation:
Lodochnik s reki Padach. Moscow, 1969.

REFERENCE

Bandopadhya, Srikumar. Bongoshahitte Uponnasher Dhara. Calcutta, 1956. Pages 416–35.