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Jibanananda Das (1899-1954) is widely recognised as the most important poet in Bengal since Rabindranath Tagore.

His strength lies in the way in which he carried the Tagore tradition forward into the spirit and idiom of a new era. The striking originality of his image and the enraptured quality of his poetry have left a deep impress on the younger generation of Bengali poets. Jibanananda is wholly contemporary and yet has a deep sense of tradition. Living so intensely in the rural surroundings in East Bengal, Jibanananda got an opportunity of knowledge of Bengali life and landscape in such a wealth of intimate detail that people of Bengla Desh have rightly found some of the most poignant and deeply personal poetry in praise of their motherland in his work. The twenty-nine poems translated in this volume represent some of his finest work.