Ketaki Kushari Dyson


Ketaki Kushari Dyson is a Bengali-born poet, novelist, playwright, translator and critic, diaspora writer and scholar. Born and educated in Calcutta, she has lived most of her adult life near Oxford, U.K. She writes in Bengali and English, on topics as wide-ranging as Bengal, England, the various Diaspora, feminism and women's issues, cultural assimilation, multiculturalism, gastronomy, social and political topics.

Early life

In an interview with Voice of America in 2011, Ketaki Kushari Dyson spoke at length of the deep influence of Rabindranath Tagore and Buddhadeb Bosu's works in her early life and introduction to poetry. She began writing poetry at the age of four and recalls Sishu, a collection of Bengali poems for children by Tagore, as the first book she read, followed by Katha-O-Kahini .

Education

Ketaki Kushari Dyson was educated in Kolkata, India at Calcutta University, where she studied English Literature, and at The University of Oxford, UK. Her doctoral thesis at Oxford University, entitled 'Various Universe: The Journals and Memoirs of British Men and Women in the Indian Subcontinent, 1765-1856', explores the writings of British men and women on their experiences of the Indian subcontinent from the early rule of the East India Company, until just before the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

Life and work in Britain

Ketaki Kushari Dyson has, remarkably continued to write both in her native Bengali was well as in English. She has published extensively in both languages. Her body of work to date includes numerous volumes of poetry, translations. Her novel, Notan Notan Payra Guli, which was published in instalments in the Bengali magazine Desh was deemed an instant success. In this novel, Kushari Dyson depicts contemporary life and struggle of immigrants in Britain, through the eyes of a Bengali woman.

Awards and recognition

Poetry

Bokol
Sap-wood
Shobij Prithibi, Ananda Publishers, Calcutta, 1980.
Hibiscus in the North, Mid-day Publications, Old Fire Station Arts Centre, Oxford, 1979.
Joler Koridor Dhorey', Navana, Calcutta, 1981.
Spaces I Inhabit, Navana, Calcutta, 1983.
Katha Boltey Dao'', Ananda, Calcutta, 1992.

Novels

Noton Noton Pairaguli, Ananda Publishers, Calcutta, 1983.
Rabindranath o Victoria Ocampor Sandhaney, Navana, Calcutta, 1985. New edition reissued by Dey's, Calcutta, 1997.

Academic Work

A Various Universe: The Journals and Memoirs of British Men and Women in the Indian Subcontinent, 1765-1856, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1978; reprinted: 1980. New edition with a new preface, 2002.
Ed., with Pauline Burton and Shirley Ardener, Bilingual Women: Anthropological Approaches to Second Language Use, Berg Publishers, Oxford & Providence, 1994. Distributed in the US by New York University Press.

Translation

Essays and biographical work

Nari, Nogori, Ananda Publishers, Calcutta, 1981.
Bhabonar Bhaskarya, Dey's, Calcutta, 1988.
Shikorbakor, Ananda, Calcutta, 1990.