Jibanananda Das
(1899-1954)
Bangladesh

An enigmatic poet, Jibanananda was born on 18th February, 1899 in Barishal, now in Bangladesh. He started late as a poet for his genre. His short creative life was cut even shorter in a fatal streetcar accident in an October evening in Calcutta.
Between 1925, when his first poem appeared, and 1954, this shy professor of English literature who hardly ever traveled out of Bengal (except for a few months' stint of teaching at Ramjas College in Delhi), penned some of the most powerful verses in Bengali. Nearly half a century after his death, his poems, with their magical lyrics and tapestry of rich imagery, continue to haunt us.
Jibanananda was a very private person; only one book of his verses was published in his lifetime, and there were no translations of his works for many years after his death. The beauty and magic of Jibanananda's poetry has largely been confined to the original Bengali.
Banalata Sen received an award (1953) at the Nikhil Banga Rabindra Sahitya Sammelan (All Bengal Rabindra Literature Convention). Jibanananda Dasher Shrestha Kavita won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1954. Jibanananda died in a tram accident in Kolkata on 22 October 1954.

Links on Jibanananda:

http://www.sulekha.com/articles/abasu_jibanananda.html
http://umbc8.umbc.edu/~achatt1/poem/poem_jiban.html
http://webdelsol.com/Perihelion/basupoetry.htm
http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~zmhasan/BD/POEM/JibDas/