Poet, novelist, playwright and children's writer, Sunil Gangopadhyay (1934-2012) was an eminent and prolific literary figure. His literary career began in 1953 with the publication of the first issue of Krittibas, a poetry magazine of which he was founder editor. Although a popular writer in different genres, he always considered poetry to be his first love. He is the author of the Sahitya Akademi Award-winning magnum opus Sei Samay (Those Days).
Pratham Alo (First Light) and Purbo-Paschim (East-West) are his other well-known novels. He has been awarded the Bankim Puraskar, Ananda Puraskar and Saraswati Samman besides other awards for his literary contributions.'
Swapna Dutta has been writing, mostly for children, for the last four decades and has more than 40 titles to her credit, including translations. She was awarded a fellowship from the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, for translating selected poems by twenty contemporary Bengali poets into English.
Her translations of works by Rabindranath Tagore, Premchand, Parashuram, Sunil Gangopadhyay, Ashapurna Debi, Lila Majumdar, Samaresh Basu, Samar Sen, Shankha Ghosh, Shrikant Varma and others have been published in literary magazines and by English-language publishers.'