This book delves into the unconventional perspectives of writers and artists from Twentieth Century Bengal, exploring their roles as 'plant thinkers.' By examining the works of figures such as Rabindranath Tagore, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, Jibanananda Das, Shakti Chattopadhyay, Satyajit Ray, and others, the narrative delves into how their stories, songs, art, and films, deeply influenced Bengali life and thought. Embracing themes of forest and garden, grass and root, weeds and magical ...

An enchanting and joyous exploration of life and creativity at the geographical edges of the modern worldWho is a provincial? In this subversive book, Sumana Roy assembles a striking cast of writers, artists, filmmakers, cricketers, tourist guides, English teachers, lovers and letter writers, private tutors and secret-keepers whose lives and work provide varied answers to that question. Combining memoir with the literary, sensory, and emotional history of an ignore...

An exquisite, lovingly crafted meditation on plants, trees, and our place in the natural world, in the tradition of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass and Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek“I was tired of speed. I wanted to live tree time.” So writes Sumana Roy at the start of How I Became a Tree, her captivating, adventurous, and self-reflective vision of what it means to be human in the natural world.Drawn to trees’ ...

My Mother's Lover and Other Stories is a collection of fourteen stories about people who suffer from curious ailments: of a poet whose writing is seen to be an ailment by her family; an insomniac's experience with sleep therapy; a woman's obsession with getting rid of plastic; a woman in Darjeeling desperate for a drop of water; a student fixated on reading a love poem as the failed relationship of her parents; a young couple trapped in a student's hostel during the 1971 war; a Nepali stud...

An exquisite, lovingly crafted meditation on plants, trees, and our place in the natural world, in the tradition of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass and Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek“I was tired of speed. I wanted to live tree time.” So writes Sumana Roy at the start of How I Became a Tree, her captivating, adventurous, and self-reflective vision of what it means to be human in the natural world.Drawn to trees’ ...

""In Sumana Roy's elegant translation, Bose's arguments remain fresh, vivid, and compelling to those reading his book in English today.""-Ramachandra Guha""A fine introduction to the literary oeuvre of the scientist who pioneered the study of plant sentience.""-Amitav GhoshIn The Man Who Made Plants Write, internationally renowned poet and critic Sumana Roy translates Jagadish Chandra Bose's revolu...