Swarnakumari Devi
1855–1932
Biography
Swarnakumari Devi (1855–1932) was a Bengali writer, editor, poet, composer and social reformer, and one of the first women to make a mark in modern Bengali literature. She grew up in the Jorasanko Tagore household in Calcutta. She was the granddaughter of Dwarkanath Tagore and the fifth daughter of Debendranath Tagore, and she was six years older than her brother Rabindranath. Unlike some of the women of her family who went to school, she was taught mainly at home. In 1868 she married Janakinath Ghosal, a man of a landowning family from Nadia district who later took the title of raja.
Her first novel, Dipnirban (দীপনির্বাণ), appeared in 1876 and was inspired by nationalist feeling. Over the following decades she wrote more novels, plays, poems and essays on science, and she was keen to build a scientific vocabulary in Bengali. She wrote more than three hundred songs. In 1879 she published Basanta Utsab, which Bengali sources count as the first lyrical musical play (gitinatya) in the language. She edited the family magazine Bharati, begun in 1877, for long stretches, and the journal, known for its plain and easy style, ran for about half a century. In 1896 she founded the Sakhi Samiti to help orphans and widows, and she organised an annual fair at Bethune College to sell Indian crafts. Bengali sources call her the first Bengali woman novelist, and the Bengali article records her as the first woman to take part openly in a session of the Indian National Congress.
The book on this site is Chhinnamukul (ছিন্নমুকুল), a novel first published in 1879, three years after her first book. It comes from the early part of her career, when she was establishing herself as a novelist. For readers who know her mainly as a songwriter or magazine editor, it is a useful way into her fiction.
This biography was written by a language model. The sources below are where to check it; treat details with care.
Books
ছিন্নমুকুল
by স্বর্ণকুমারী দেবী
The novel opens in a house on a hill above the sea at Bombay, where a young woman, Charushila, lies ill and her sister watches by her bed, and goes on to follow the two sisters and the people about them. Swarnakumari Devi, Rabindranath Tagore's elder sister and one of the first…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.