UpdateBot at 08:10, 25 February 2022

2022-02-25T08:10:04Z

New page

{{short description|Indian poet and novelist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2018}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Maitreyi Devi
| image = MaitreyiDeviPic.jpg
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1914|9|1}}
| birth_place = [[Chittagong]], [[Bengal Presidency]], [[British India]]
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1989|01|29|1914|9|1}}<ref name="loc">[https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n81114587.html Maitraye Devi, 1914-1989], Library of Congress</ref>
|death_place = [[Kolkata]], [[West Bengal]], [[India]]
| occupation = [[Poet]], [[Novelist]]
| known_for = Na Hanyate
| spouse = Dr. M.M. Sen
| children = 2
| parents = [[Surendranath Dasgupta]] (Father) Himani Madhuri Rai (Mother)
| website =
}}

'''Maitreyi Devi''' (or '''Maitreyī Devī'''; 1 September 1914 – 29 January 1989<ref name="loc"/>) was an Indian poet and novelist. She is best known for her [[Sahitya Akademi Award]]-winning novel, ''[[Na Hanyate]]'' ({{translation|'It Does Not Die'}}).

==Biography==
Devi was born in 1914.<ref name="Kamani 1996" /> She was the daughter of philosopher [[Surendranath Dasgupta]] and protégée of poet [[Rabindranath Tagore]].<ref name="Kamani 1996" /><ref name="Pal 2016"/> She studied in St. John's Diocesan Girls' Higher Secondary School, [[Kolkata|Calcutta]] (now Kolkata) and graduated from the [[Jogamaya Devi College]], an affiliated undergraduate women's college of the historic [[University of Calcutta]], in [[Kolkata]].<ref>[http://jogamayadevicollege.org/history.htm History of the College]</ref> She published her first book of poetry at age 16, with a preface by Tagore.<ref name="Mehta 1994">{{cite news |last1=Mehta |first1=Nina |title=THEY'VE LOOKED AT LOVE FROM BOTH SIDES NOW |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1994-05-08-9405080060-story.html |access-date=10 July 2021 |work=The Chicago Tribune |date=May 8, 1994}}</ref>

By age 16, she was attending university, and in 1930, the [[Romania]]n writer [[Mircea Eliade]] was invited by her father to stay at their house.<ref name="Kamani 1996" /> After several months, when her parents discovered the 23-year-old Eliade and Devi had an intimate relationship, Eliade was told to leave and never contact her again.<ref name="Kamani 1996" />

She married Dr. Manmohan Sen<ref name="Pal 2016">{{cite news |last1=Pal |first1=Sanchari |title=This Little Known Himalayan Village Was the Much-Loved Summer Retreat of Rabindranath Tagore |url=https://www.thebetterindia.com/62217/mongpu-tagore-west-bengal/ |access-date=10 July 2021 |work=The Better India |date=July 19, 2016}}</ref> when she was 20<ref name="Kamani 1996" /> and he was 34. They had two children together.<ref name="Kamani 1996" />

In 1938 and 1939, she invited Rabindranath Tagore to stay in her and her husband's house in [[Mungpoo]] near [[Kalimpong]], which later became the [[Rabindra Museum]].<ref>Mungpoo.org. [http://www.mungpoo.org/2011/09/Mungpoo-Kabiguru-Rabindranath-tagore-Museum.html Mungpoo and Kabi Guru Rabindranath Tagore, Museum].</ref> Her works include ''Mongpute Rabindranath'' (Tagore by The Fire Side), a record of his visit with her.<ref name="Pal 2016"/>

She was the founder of the Council for the Promotion of Communal Harmony in 1964, and vice-president of the All-India Women's Coordinating Council. She also established orphanages.<ref name="Kamani 1996" />

In 1972, she learned Mircea Eliade had written the novel ''[[Bengal Nights (novel)|Bengal Nights]]'', that purported to describe a sexual relationship between them.<ref name="Kamani 1996" /> According to Richard Eder, writing for the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'', "he turned what evidently were fervent but limited caresses into a lavishly sexual affair, with Maitreyi paying nightly bedroom visits as a kind of mystically inflamed Hindu goddess of love."<ref name="Eder 1994">{{cite news |last1=Eder |first1=Richard |title=Two Tales of Love : BENGAL NIGHTS, '' By Mircea Eliade'' , '' Translated from the French by Catherine Spencer'' ; '' (University of Chicago: $22.50; 176 pp.)'' : IT DOES NOT DIE, '' By Maitreyi Devi'' ; '' (University of Chicago: $22.50; 280 pp.)'' |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-03-27-bk-38810-story.html |access-date=10 July 2021 |work=Los Angeles Times |date=March 27, 1994}}</ref> In late 1972, she published a collection of poems, ''Aditya Marichi'' (Sun Rays), which reference Eliade, and according to Ginu Kamani, writing for the ''Toronto Review'', "reflect the turbulence she felt at dealing, at the age of fifty eight, forty-two years after the fact of their involvement, with the old passions of her youth."

After traveling to the University of Chicago to give lectures on Tagore, where Eliade was a professor, and meeting with Eliade several times,<ref name="Eder 1994" /> she released her novel ''[[Na Hanyate]]'' (It Does Not Die: A Romance) in 1974,<ref>Firdaus Azim, ''The Journal of Asian Studies'', Association for Asian Studies, Vol. 55, 1996, pp. 1035-103</ref> which won the [[List of Sahitya Akademi Award winners for Bengali|Sahitya Akademi Award]] in 1976. Nina Mehta, in a review for the ''[[Chicago Tribune]]'', writes, "Devi rubbishes the sex scenes and a few particulars in Eliade's novel, claiming that Alain's confessional tone elides the truth, that his memory implies false facts. Yet ironically, and perhaps waggishly, she answers Eliade's fiction by giving a larger credence to the fantasy he created."<ref name="Mehta 1994" />

''It Does Not Die'' and ''Bengal Nights'' were republished in 1994 as companion volumes by the University of Chicago Press, although Kamani writes, "Astonishing as it might sound given the sleight-of-hand dictated by marketing decisions at the University of Chicago Press, Devi's "response" ''was written to stand on its own''."<ref name="Kamani 1996">{{cite web |last1=Kamani |first1=Ginu |title=A Terrible Hurt: The Untold Story behind the Publishing of Maitreyi Devi |url=https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/143651.html |website=University of Chicago Press |access-date=9 July 2021 |date=1996}}</ref> The book has been translated into various European languages, including Romanian.<ref name="Kamani 1996" /> In the 1980s, an adaptation of ''Bengal Nights'' was developed into a film, starring [[Hugh Grant]] and [[Supriya Pathak]], and Devi challenged the film, first by insisting that the name of the character Maitreyi be changed to Gayatri, and later in lawsuits that delayed production.<ref name="Kamani 1996" /> By 1996, the film had not been released in India nor the United States.<ref name="Kamani 1996" />

==Awards==
She received [[Sahitya Akademi Award]] in the year 1976 for her novel ''[[Na Hanyate]]''.

== Publications ==
* ''Tagore by Fireside'', 1943 <ref>{{Cite book|title=Tagore by Fireside|last=Devi|first=Maitreyi|date=October 2002|isbn=8171677258}}</ref>
* ''Rabindranath—The Man behind His Poetry'', 1973<ref name=Rabindranath>{{cite book|last=Devi|first=Maitreyi|title=Rabindranath--the man behind his poetry|year=1973|publisher=Sudhir Das at Nabajatak Printers|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dp1jAAAAMAAJ}}</ref>
* ''It Does Not Die: A Romance'', 1974<ref>{{Cite book|title=It Does Not Die: A Romance|last=Devi|first=Maitreyi}}</ref>
* ''রবীন্দ্রনাথ গৃহে ও বিশ্বে (Rabindranath at home and in the world)''
* ''মংপুতে রবীন্দ্রনাথ (Rabindranath at Mangpu)''

==See also==
* [[List of Sahitya Akademi Award winners for Bengali]]

== References ==
{{reflist}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Devi, Maitreyi}}
[[Category:1914 births]]
[[Category:1990 deaths]]
[[Category:Bengali novelists]]
[[Category:Bengali female poets]]
[[Category:Rabindranath Tagore]]
[[Category:Jogamaya Devi College alumni]]
[[Category:University of Calcutta alumni]]
[[Category:Indian women novelists]]
[[Category:Women writers from West Bengal]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian poets]]
[[Category:People from Chittagong]]
[[Category:Indian women poets]]
[[Category:Poets from West Bengal]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian novelists]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Padma Shri in literature & education]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian women writers]]
[[Category:Novelists from West Bengal]]
[[Category: Writers from Kolkata]]

Maitreyi Devi - Revision history

UpdateBot at 08:10, 25 February 2022