Bengali science fiction


Bengali science fiction is a part of Bengali literature containing science fiction elements.

Earliest writers

Science fiction in the Bengali language is known as "kalpabigyan".
In 1896, Jagadish Chandra Bose, considered to be the father of Bengali science fiction, wrote Niruddesher Kahini. This tale of weather control, one of the first Bengali science fiction works, features getting rid of a cyclone using a little bottle of hair oil. Later, he included the story with changes in the collection of essays titled Abyakto as Palatak Tufan. Both versions of the story have been translated into English by Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay.
Premendra Mitra wrote the first novel, Kuhoker Deshe. Hemendra Kumar Ray wrote Meghduter Morte Agomon.

Writers from West Bengal

Professor Shonku is a fictional scientist created by Satyajit Ray in a series of Bengali science fiction books. His full name is Trilokeshwar Shonku, and by occupation, he is an inventor. A short story known as The Alien written by Satyajit Ray about an alien named "Mr. Ang" gained popularity among Bengalis in the early 1960s. Ray is attributed with virtually pioneering the genre of Indian Science Fiction. It is alleged that the script for Steven Spielberg's film E.T. was based on a script for The Alien that Ray had sent to the film's producers in the late 1960s.
Other notable science fiction writers of West Bengal include: Hemendra Kumar Roy, Sukumar Ray, Leela Majumdar, Premendra Mitra, Sunil Ganguly, Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay, Syed Mustafa Siraj, Samarjit Kar, Anish Deb, Biswajit Ganguly, Siddhartha Ghosh, Suman Sen, Rajesh Basu and Abhijnan Roychowdhury.