Nirupama Devi

Nirupama Devi was part of a new breed of women writers who were winning the hearts of readers in the late nineteenth-century Bengal. Her most productive years as a writer were between 1913 and 1927. Her major novels and novellas include Annapurnar Mandir (1913), Aleya (1917), Shyamali (1919) and Bidhilipi (1919). Didi, her longest and most critically acclaimed novel, was originally published in 1915. Shyamali, depicting the life of a deaf and dumb girl, was adapted into a play and created a stir. Nirupama Devi passed away on 7 January 1951. A published short story writer and poet since the age of 18, Alo Shome has been engaged in translating Bengali classics into English for the last 15 years. Her work as a translator has been praised highly by critics and readers alike. She has translated Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Krishna Charitra (published in 2008), Mir Mosharraf Hossain’s Bishad Sindhu (published in 2018), and a collection of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s essays on Hinduism titled Many Threads of Hinduism (published in 2015). Didi is Alo’s fourth undertaking as a translator.