Peary Chand Mitra

Peary Chand Mitra (22 July 1814 – 23 November 1883) was an Indian writer, journalist, cultural activist and entrepreneur. His pseudonym was Tek Chand Thakur. He was a member of Henry Derozio's Young Bengal group, who played a leading role in the Bengal Renaissance with the introduction of simple Bengali prose. His Alaler Gharer Dulal pioneered the novel in the Bengali language, leading to a tradition taken up by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and others. Mitra died on 23 November 1883 in Kolkata.

Early life Mitra was born at Calcutta on 22 July 1814. His ancestral village was Panisehala in Hooghly District of present-day West Bengal. His father, Ramnarayan Mitra, moved from Panisehala, Hooghli District to Calcutta in early life and made his fortunes as banians to European merchants and officials. So great was its popularity that the language style came to be known as 'Alali'. That set the trend for Bengali prose then. In 1864, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay published his first novel Durgeshnandini to finally lay down the standard for Bengali prose. Alaler Ghare Dulal was later translated into English.

Dickens of Bengal Rev. James Long was a keen observer of the literary scene in Bengal and referred to Mitra as 'the Dickens of Bengal'. He was imprisoned and fined for writing a preface to the English translation of Dinabandhu Mitra's controversial play Nil Darpan. The translation was done by Michael Madhusudan Dutt.

Entrepreneurship In later life, Mitra became a successful businessman. Along with his Derozian friend Tarachand Chakraborti, he was involved in export-import business Pearychand & Tarachand Limited.

Family Mitra had a brother Kishori Chand Mitra, a civil servant. He had four sonsAmrita Lal Mitra, Chuuni Lal Mitra, Heera Lal Mitra and Nagendra Lal Mitra and a daughter Uma Shashi Mitra.