Jibanananda Das’s lyricism is unparalleled in Bengali literature. His early poems are vivid, eloquent celebrations of the beauty of Bengal; his later works, written in the 1940s and 50s, are darker, comments on political issues and current affairs like the Second World War, the Bengal Famine of ’43 and Hindu–Muslim riots at the time of Partition.

Born in 1899, Jibanananda belonged to a group of poets who tried to shake off Tagore’s poetic influence. While he is best known for poetry that reveals a deep love for nature and rural landscapes, tradition and history, Jibanananda is also strikingly urban, and introspective, his work centring on themes of loneliness, depression and death. He was a master of word-images, and his unique poetic idiom drew on tradition but was startlingly new.

Jibanananda died in a tram accident in 1954. His Shrestha Kavita (Best Poems) won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1955.