Suchitra Bhattacharya was born on 10 January 1950 in Bhagalpur, Bihar. She was interested in writing from her childhood. Bhattacharya graduated from the Jogamaya Devi College, an affiliated undergraduate women's college of the historic University of Calcutta, in Kolkata. After graduating from the University of Calcutta she married and took a break from writing. She returned to writing with short stories written in the late seventies. She started writing novels in the mid eighties. Within a decade, especially after publication of the novelKacher Dewal, she became one of the major writers of Bengal.
Death
Suchitra Bhattacharya died at the age of 65, on 12 May 2015 due to a massive cardiac arrest at her home in Dhakuria, Kolkata.
Career
Her writing focuses on contemporary social issues. She was a perceptive observer of the changing urban milieu and her writing closely examines the contemporary Bengali middle class. Crisis in human relationships and the changing values of the present era along with degeneration of the moral fiber of the society in the backdrop of globalization and consumerism are depicted in her prose. Exploitations and sufferings of women regardless of their social or economic identities find a distinct voice in her writing. She took up many odd jobs in her early youth and finally joined the public service which she left in 2004 to become a full-time writer. Her long career is reflected in many of her stories and novels. Though she herself is a prolific writer of Bengal, she was in awe of her fellow contemporary women authors like Sangita Bandyopadhyay and Tilottama Majumdar. She was deeply influenced by Ashapurna Debi and Mahasweta Debi, and their body of feminist work in Bengali literature. Over the past two decades, Suchitra had written about 24 novels and a large number of short stories in different leading Bengali literary magazines. Some of her acclaimed novels are:
Suchitra Bhattacharya also contributed in the Bengali detective genre parallel to her own forte and individualistic style of writing. Her written character Mitin Masi and various stories, novels revolving around mysteries are very popular among Bengali readers. There are only a few female detective characters in Bengali literature and Mitin masi is one of them. Her novels and short stories have been translated into many Indian languages such as Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Oriya, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi and English. She also wrote novels and short stories for children. She has written a series of detective novels in the yearly "Anandamela" with the fictional character "Mitin masi". Her novel Dahan was made into a movie by famous Bengali director, late Rituparno Ghosh, who explored the ordeals and trauma of a rape victim. "Ichcher Gaach": this short story also inspired a full-length feature film 'Icche' directed by Shiboprosad Mukherjee and Nandita Roy. "Hemonter Pakhi" was also made into a feature film by Urmi Chakraborty. Mitin Masi the famous character written by her for juveniles published at Anandamela. 'Sarandai Saitan' is the first novel of the character Mitin masi. The other detective novels are: Sarporahosya sundarbone, Jhau jhien hotyarorosya, Dussapno bar bar, Sander saheber Puthi etc. Besides juveniles she also wrote Mitin Masi stories for elders.Suchitrya Bhattacharya'S first Mitin masi novel is "maron Batas" which was written for the adults.
Awards and accolades
Suchitra received several awards which include the Bhuban Mohini Medal from Calcutta University in 2004, the Nanjanagudu Thirumalamba National Award from Bangalore in 1996, the Katha Award 1997 from Delhi, the Tarashankar Award in 2000 from Kolkata, the Dwijendralal Award in 2001 from Kalyani, the Sharat Puroshkar in 2002 from Bhagalpur, as well as the Bharat Nirman Award, Sahitya Setu Award and Shailajananda Smriti Puroshkar in 2004 and Dinesh Chandra Smriti Puroskar in 2015.she received Mati Nandy award on 2012,Dinesh Chandra Smriti Award on 2015 She also received Bhubon Mohini SwarnaPadak from Calcutta University.
