Nabaneeta Dev Sen

Nabaneeta Dev Sen (Nôbonita Deb Sen; 13 January 1938 – 7 November 2019) was an Indian writer and academic. After studying arts and comparative literature, she moved to the United States where she studied further. She returned to India and taught at several universities and institutes as well as serving in various positions in literary institutes. She published more than 80 books in Bengali: poetry, novels, short stories, plays, literary criticism, personal essays, travelogues, humour writing, translations and children's literature. She was awarded the Padma Shri in 2000 and the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1999.

Early life and education Dev Sen was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata) into a Bengali family on 13 January 1938. She was the only child of the poet-couple Narendra Dev (Narendra Deb 1888–1971, son of Nagendra Chandra Deb) and Radharani Devi (1903–1989), who wrote under the pen name Aparajita Devi. She was given her name by Rabindranath Tagore. She attended Gokhale Memorial Girls' School and Presidency College, Kolkata.

She held the Maytag Chair of Creative Writing and Comparative Literature at Colorado College, 1988–1989. From 2003 to 2005, Dev Sen was the J. P. Naik Distinguished Fellow at the Centre of Women's Development Studies in New Delhi.

She represented herself and India in many international conferences, both academic and literary,

Associations She held executive positions in the International Comparative Literature Association (1973–1979), She was the founder secretary and later vice-president of the Indian National Comparative Literature Association.

Her first collection of poems Pratham Pratyay (First Confidence) was published in 1959.

Her first novel Ami Anupam (I, Anupam) was published in 1976 in the Puja Issue of the Ananda Bazar Patrika. having first written for children in 1979.

Recognition Dev Sen received many national and international awards and honours, including: Gouridevi Memorial Award, Mahadevi Verma Award (1992), Celli Award from Rockefeller Foundation (1993), Sarat Award from Bhagalpur University of Bihar (1994), Prasad Puraskar, Sahitya Akademi Award (1999). Mystic Kalinga Literary Award (2017), and the Big Little Book Award for children's literature in 2017, when the award focused on Bengali writing. She was awarded the Padma Shri (2000), the fourth highest civilian award by the Government of India.

Personal life and death

In 1958, she married Amartya Sen, an economist and academician and then a lecturer of economics at the Jadavpur University, who would be awarded the Nobel Prize four decades later.

Her hobbies included reading, records, and travelling.

She died on 7 November 2019 in Kolkata following cancer.