Amar Mitra wrote the story in 1977, when he was only 26 years old; Today, it has earned him the O.J., founded in 1919. Henry Prize, whose past winners have included William Faulkner, Saul Bolo and Raymond Carver.
The award strengthens Mr. Mitra’s belief that the short story – titled gamburo in bangla and old man of kusumpur In English – there must be some “inner power” even for a western audience to find it relevant after 45 long years.
“Often, at times, it has been hailed as a ‘wonderful story.’ Mr Mitra, honored with the Sahitya Akademi Award and several other prestigious honors at home, said Hindu,
The story is about a man’s journey in a distant village who meets a seer-like figure who must have the answer to all life’s problems. As he makes the arduous journey, the people helping him along the way pile on him with their problems, asking him to present their case to the old man.
The story, drawn from Mr. Mitra’s experiences as an employee of the Land Reforms Department of West Bengal, was forgotten until it began to attract the attention of non-Bengali audiences in 1990, when translated by Anish Gupta . It started earning praise at literary festivals in India. The principal of an American college, who attended one such event, was so impressed that he urged Mr. Mitra to quit his day job and devote himself to writing full-time.
“I told him there was no question of me quitting his job because India, especially Bengal, brought hardly any money,” said the writer from Kolkata, during his years as a government employee in rural Bengal. Said a Kolkata-based writer who spent a lot of time in turning point for gamburo This came in 2019 when Mr. Mitra was attending a literary meet in Kazakhstan.
“During the opening, I was one of four writers on stage, and I gave a 40-minute long speech on the mysterious life, heavily influenced by my short story. Suddenly, eminent contestants were coming up to me and praising me. An Arabic journalist requested that I get the story translated. Upon returning home, I requested Anisho [Gupta, the translator] to look anew gamburo and send [to one of the prestigious publications] abroad,” Mr Mitra said.
In 2020, the story was sent to the prestigious American literary magazine, GeneralWhich published it in March 2021. Mr. Mitra was officially informed about the award on April 4 this year.
Author Parimal Bhattacharya said of the honour: “Short story has always been a strength of Bengali literature, and Amar Mitra winning this prestigious award for one of his short stories is a nod to this rich tradition. We should celebrate it, Not only because of an international literary recognition that is coming our way after some time, but also because translators can now access the rich repository of Bengali literature and make more works available to people studying English.