Historical documents of 19th century Bengali life and family are in short supply. Satirists had been up to the job to some extent. That too is out of the readers’ reach. Twenty such satires have been salvaged in this anthology for the first time since their first publication.

One of the pioneering thinkers of 19th century Bengal, Bhudev Mukherjee raised some basic questions - whether we should emulate the sahibs or brush up our own social and cultural wealth for our own sake. He seeks to show up the original image of the traditional society and culture of Bengal in the five books of essays compiled here. Out of print for long, all his books of essays, along with notes and references, are brought together in this edited volume.

A group of scholars, teachers and students of the 70s and 80s had sought to bring the subject of socio-economics out of the confines of the campus into the wider world. The outcome was this magazine that had raised a number of fresh questions. Times have changed, but the questions did not lose their topicality at all. All the numbers of the magazine have been brought together. An unputdownable archive for every discerning reader.

Unlike his novels and short stories, Kamal Kumar’s essays had been lying scattered in various magazines. All those rare gems have, for the first time, found a berth between two covers. He was a writer of multifarious interests. Art and literature were his forte. His avid readers will now have all his essays together in a single volume.

A number of Tagore songs has been studied as poems by the author in terms of nature, time, self and the other. Thus it opens up the treasure-trove of Tagore’s lyric, lending them a new dimension. It’s a return of the author to the domain of literature after a long gap of eight decades with questions afresh.

A combination of words and painting – of the artist and the essayist. Celebrated artist Ganesh Pyne’s candidly speaks of his paintings. It’s not a conventional discourse on art. Rather, an exhibition of paintings, dialogue and analysis.

The word development lends itself to never-ending questions. Not restricted to the binary of good and bad, positive and negative, the collection takes in its fold both the present and the future. Contributors to the volume are: Ashis Nandy, Partha Chatterjee, Ajitnarayan bose, Amit Bhaduri, Dipesh chakraborty, Claude Alvarez, Pranab Kanti Bose et all.

Nagendranath Bose is one of the pioneers of quest for knowledge that had begun with salvaging ancient literature and search for history in the 19th century. He tells the story of the adventurous expedition in search of old puthis (manuscripts), lost and almost extinct. A pathfinder in Bengali manuscript collection and editing, Nagendranath’s autobiography is an enthralling experience for readers.

Bengali readers know him as a humorist. His identity as a person interested in science and technology has always been out of focus.

For the past few decades, Bengali prose literature has been shining bright – both in thoughts and modes of presentation. Most of this crop is harvested in the field of little magazines. Here is a selection of 28 essays from that field. A miniscule archive of Bengali prose literature.

Presentation of classic literature with care. A grand story-teller, Troilokyanath Mukherjee is an all-time favourite with Bengali readers. This edition turns out to be a collector’s item because of its sheer production quality.

A product of the Tagore House at Jorasanko, Ritendranath was both an editor and author. As a writer, he had multifarious areas of interest. In this book, he is out to track down the origin of various food items and rituals of Bengalis in an informal mood. The history and evolution of it all are pleasurably dealt with.

Written anonymously, the book was first published in English in 1869 with a print order for only 200 copies. It shows up an authentic picture of the contemporary police- administration-society. The avid reader will get enough food for thought, amusement and astonishment. Narrator Miajjan is so candid because he had little education.

A store-house of memories may exist beyond time-space and the urban gaze. That memory, embedded in silence, is not only visually present, but is also a living entity with its melody, smell and a rare loneliness. In the journey through the cityscape its unspoken role stretches to the point of a peaceful eviction. It is the first Bangla trilogy which is not woven through a continuity of the storyline. Reality is illusory here. This magic realism has been created not only through a harmonious blend of prose and poetry but also through the narrative element which has a very strong presence. This trilogy is a tribute in three different forms to the fast-receding city of Kolkata. It is, as it were, a linguistic fortress to resist the loss of memory.

This senior writer has been writing for quite a long time, but has never been in the pursuit publication of his books. He has not churned out too many volumes; his focus has been quite different from the very beginning. He is always anxious about the mode of presentation. Many of the readers of modern Bangla short stories must have read one or the other of his stories. This book will certainly add to the experience of reading his previous books. Most of the fifteen stories in this collection, written over a period of four decades, have been published in little magazines. They span the journey from youth to late middle age. Just as this senior prose-writer has never shunned the path of personal belief, he has never shied away from expressing moments of crisis either.

Like all other genres of Bengali literature, the range of humorous stories and stories tinged with little sarcastic humour, is unique. The editor had intended to record this evolution of one hundred and fifty years in one single volume. This book may be termed as an encyclopedia of satirical stories, from that point of view. From Mrityunjoy Bidyalankar, Bhabanicharan Bandyopadhyay, Pyarichand Mitra, Jagadish Gupta, Premankur Atarthi to Diptendrakumar Sanyal. This archive of the one fifty year old Bangla satirical stories is a personal collection of Parimal Goswami.

This author, who did prematurely, had a lot of possibilities for which he was, and still is, appreciated by a select group of readers. In his writings, one comes across a living testimony of the terrified times with its repressions, regressive pulls and perversions. The world of Manik's literary output has been presented in this book, along with a micro-novel and a few short stories.

Time-space-events are totally topsy-turvy, no unifying link is visible. At long last Bangla novel is ridden of consecutive projects of constructing artificial villages. The novel also, in this connection, gets a new lease of life, where only an interactive process of arguments, debates and question-answers can generate one story after the other.

Modern politics and modern theory and philosophy are inter-related. Political theory is no more confined to the political arena only. Theory is also being questioned continuously. Pertinent questions as to its nature, principles are being raised. How did political theory aspire to become a political science? The author he tried to comprehend both theory and politics with the help of the ideas of Michelle Foucault, Derrida and Giorgio Agamben.

There is a separate discourse of the study of social sciences in Bangla. This book presents a discussion on how the writings on anthropology and sociology since the second half of the nineteenth century acquired a unique identity through the vehicle of the vernacular Bangla. This process spans a very long period from 'Bibidhartha Sangraha' to Sharatchandra Roy, Nirmal Kumar Basu, Bhudeb Mukhopadhay, Dhurjati Prasad Mukhopadhay to Binay Ghosh. Apart from these authors, other important writers on subjects have also been discussed in the present volume. Moreover, an account of the authors' lives and writings has also been incorporated here.

This marshy region of Bengal is almost a separate landmass, whose first account was written by F.E. Pargitar. The inhabitants here are dependent on nature, again victims of nature's fury. This book by Abhijit Sengupta is remarkable as a document on the harmony between nature and man. It is a story of the riverine forests, a record of the ebb and tide and the poetry of the tide-country, and fourteen different interpretations of the uncertainties woven with the human existence. This book by Abhijit Sengupta was published almost three decades ago and was quite acclaimed. The present book is its edited version. This book has been again newly decorated by artist Judhajit Sengupta.

This book is Charchapada's first foray into the publication of English books. The sundarbans, one of the wonders of nature, has perennially been a mystery to visitors. Her appeal never ceases. The wealth of information contained in this book, along with visual documentation, is sure to fascinate knowledgeable readers and benefit students, nature lovers and wildlife enthusiasts. The photographs of the flora and fauna accompanying the text have been clicked by the author himself.

Only two of this author's stories have been published in commercial magazines while the others have come out in different little magazines. In one word, he can be termed a writer of little mags. He has contributed to little magazines like 'Ekshan', 'Parichay', 'Anustup', 'Apor', 'Baromash' and countless others. The volumes of short stories already published are now rare to come by. The present volume has been compiled with stories scattered over those books and magazines.

This narrative of narrative theory divided into three parts (pre-classical, classical and post-classical) is not merely a chronological account. There is an effort to investigate and analyze a complex and problematic theory in the process of the construction of a narrative. There is, in that sense, no such definite closure. This narrative has two probable directions - one which goes back to its linguistic roots, the other moving forward to an uncertain future. The theoretical world which has emerged out of this search accommodates a continuity though a definite causal relation is absent here. Here there is an assembly of various intellectual traditions, theoretical movements and analytical paradigms. Along with it there is a detailed discussion on the narrative theories of different countries, periods and schools. As a result, the search has spread to numerous branches of narrative theory - from formalism to the study of history, from linguistics to social science and psychology. At the end of the book a brief list of relevant terms has been appended.

The first Bangla novel on Oriya social life published in 1903. The presence of 'folk' life in the novel had attracted the attention of Rabindranath Tagore. This Charchapada edition is enriched by a detailed introduction, important information and rare write-ups.

The life of this legendary actress is no less eventful and interesting than any film-script. Long ago, her father had deserted her mother and gone his own way. She appeared on the stage as Madhuri at the tender age of five or six, just to earn a living. A candid recollection of memories of Madhabi Mukhopadhyay is accompanied by some rare photographs.

This book has tried to establish the fact that not as a whole, only Fukushima, but nuclear energy, always leads to destruction. And in undertaking this task, has amassed a huge volume of vital information. These are sometimes statistics, sometimes descriptions and again sometimes heart-rending experiences.