Facsimile Edition with a Supplementary Monograph
 
Jibanananda Das
Transcribed, Edited & Annotated by Abhijit Gupta
Few pages for you
 
In 1983, Pratikshan set out to present Jibanananda Das's unpublished writings to readers through close adherence to the original manuscripts. Since then, our engagement with Jibanananda has continued—and entered a new phase in 2022—through repeated readings and renewed publications grounded in the manuscripts themselves. While work was in progress at the School of Cultural Texts and Records (SCTR), Jadavpur University, on Jibanananda Das's novel Safalata-Nishfalata, Professor Abhijit Gupta, Director of SCTR, drew our attention to this manuscript preserved in its archives, which forms the basis of the present volume. Having examined a good number of Jibanananda's manuscripts, what struck us first about this notebook was its remarkable orderliness and neatness. Jibanananda was always more meticulous with the manuscripts of his poems than with his prose, and this notebook stands as a consummate example of that care. The fact that he wrote exclusively on the recto, leaving every verso page blank, makes it not unreasonable to assume that he may have been preparing a press copy of this collection of English poems. Whether he actually intended to see it through to publication, however, cannot be stated with certainty.
   To devoted readers of Jibanananda's poetry, these English poems will undoubtedly appear 'rudimentary' in nature. Yet the notebook assumes immense importance if one wishes to understand how the world of poetry—and its possible future—was taking shape in the mind of a young poet of twenty-five or twenty-six. The notebook was compiled in 1925, the very time when he was also writing his memoirs, texts that—though somewhat scattered—offer a clear glimpse into his thoughts on poetry and writing at the time. This poetry notebook functions, as it were, as a supplement to those reflections.
 
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