Veteran author Prafulla Roy passes away

KOLKATA: Veteran Bengali author and Sahitya Akademi winner Prafulla Roy passed away in Kolkata on Thursday following prolonged illness. He was 90. The prolific author was battling age-related health issues for a long time. On Thursday around 3.15 pm, he breathed his last.

Condoling Roy’s death, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee posted on X and wrote how the acclaimed author powerfully portrayed the pain and struggles of a refugee’s life through many of his popular works.

The CM mentioned his timeless work ‘Keya Patar Nouko’. She pointed out how Roy was closely associated with several newspapers and literary publications, earning a permanent place in the landscape of Bengali literature.

The CM also recalled the Bengal government had been privileged to honour Roy at a function in 2012. Roy’s contribution to Bengali literature is endless.

He gifted Bengali readers with popular novels like ‘Mondo Meyer Upakhyan’ and ‘Nona Jol Mithe Mati’. A TV serial based on ‘Keya Patar Nouko’ was hugely popular. His story ‘Bagh Bondi Khela’ was made into a film that starred Uttam Kumar.

For his novel ‘Akasher Nei Manush’, he won the Bankim Puraskar, and he also received the Sahitya Akademi Award. In fact, ‘Mondo Meyer Upakhyan’, too, was later adapted on the big screen by Buddhadeb Dasgupta and the film went onto win the National Award in 2003. Around 45 telefilms, TV series and many feature films have been made based on his works.

Born on September 11, 1934, in Atpara village of Bikrampur, in what was then East Bengal (now in Bangladesh), Roy moved to India in 1950 and settled in Kolkata. He travelled all over the country to get a feel of how ordinary people lived and suffered.

He even lived with tribal communities in Nagaland, with the ‘untouchables’ in Bihar and with rootless people in the Andamans. Roy wrote over 150 books His first novel ‘Purva Parvati’ was written in Nagaland and published in 1956.