For Home, Family And Nation

Aparajita Dasgupta is a historian of gender and an author of fiction in Bengali. She studied in Presidency College and the University of Calcutta and taught previously in various government colleges in West Bengal and at St Mary’s College, USA, as a Fulbright Visiting Professor. She is currently CEO of West Bengal State Book Board, Kolkata. Her book, For Home, Family, and Country: Women and the Politics of Gender in Bengal, 1870-1947, was published in 2025. Over two decades, her creative writing in Bengali has produced 12 books, including novels, short stories, essays, autobiographical vignettes and children’s stories.

Debnita Chakravarti is Associate Professor in the Department of English, Shri Shikshayatan College. She is associated with Calcutta University, Jadavpur University, Visva Bharati and St Xavier’s College and University among other institutions as guest faculty, examiner and resource person. Her doctoral research on British Romantic women writers at University of Reading was followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at University of Southampton as a Charles Wallace scholar. She is among the lucky few to have spent a scholar residence at Chawton, researching at the Great House archives and the Jane Austen Museum. Besides Romanticism, she has presented and published internationally and at several national forums on gender and popular culture. She is a member of the Kolkata chapter of the Indo-British Scholars’ Association. She also writes poetry, fiction, screenplays and reviews. She is a freelance editor and translator working in Bengali, French and Hindi. A keen wildlife enthusiast, she was the recipient of The Independent’s Travel Writer Award, and earlier, the President’s Award for Children’s Poetry.