Manohar Mouli Biswas


Manohar Mouli Biswas is the pseudo-name of Manohar Biswas, a popular and most likely the best known bilingual poet, essayist and writer of Dalit Literature from Bengal.

Life and career

Manohar Mouli Biswas was born into Namasudra caste at Dakshin Matiargati, Khulna in East Bengal in 1943. Having suffered from dire poverty since his childhood he struggled and beaten up all the obstacles in his route and became educated and finally established himself as an acclaimed Dalit writer in India. None of his forefathers had the privilege of going to school. He saw the pains suffered by his illiterate masses and the humiliation faced by them. He has no shame to acknowledge that he is a first generation learner in his family. It is all this pain pent up within his heart that has forced him to become a writer. It was during his stay in Nagpur in 1968–1969 that he came in close contact with Dalit people and the Dalit literary movement in Maharashtra that changed the course of his life as a litterateur.
Manohar Mouli Biswas is a legend in his own right. He is the current President of Bangla Dalit Sahitya Sanstha. He has been editing the pioneering bi-monthly literary magazine Dalit Mirror in English for more than a decade. The magazine upholds the cause of the Dalits in Bengal. He has written four volumes of poems, one collection of short story, seven books of essays and an autobiography entitled Amar Bhubaney Ami Benche Thaki which is later translated by Angana Dutta and Jaydeep Sarangi and published as Surviving in My World : Growing Up Dalit in Bengal. This translated autobiography has earned national and global reputation and has been enlisted into the syllabus of different universities. Jaydeep Sarangi has edited a collection of essays on him, "Bangla Dalit Writer Writes Back"

Poems in translation

His poems are translated widely from Bangla into English and into other languages. His translated poems are gradually attracted by the wide-readers, and have come into the scholastic discussions. [A Rose of Revolt: Two Poems in Bengali by: Manohar Mouli Biswas –
- translated by Jaydeep Sarangi

List of works

Poetry collections