Ami Ki Bangali?

Sunil Gangopadhyay or Sunil Ganguly (Bengali: সুনীল গঙ্গোপাধ্যায় Shunil Gônggopaddhae), was an Indian Bengali poet and novelist based in the Indian city of Kolkata. He was born on 7 September 1934 in Faridpur, in what is now Bangladesh. He obtained his master's degree in Bengali from the University of Calcutta. Ganguly created the Bengali fictional character Kakababu and wrote a series of novels on this character which became significant in Indian children's literature. He received Sahitya Akademi award in 1985 for his novel Those Days (Sei Samaya). Gangopadhyay used the pen names Nil Lohit, Sanatan Pathak, and Nil Upadhyay. Ganguly created the Bengali fictional character Kakababu and wrote a series of novels on this character which became significant in Indian children's literature. He received Sahitya Akademi award in 1985 for his novel Those Days (Sei Samaya). Gangopadhyay used the pen names Nil Lohit, Sanatan Pathak, and Nil Upadhyay. He was born in Faridpur into a Bengali Hindu family in what is now Bangladesh. He came to live in Kolkata from his ancestral town at an early age. Later, his ancestral town fell within East Pakistan after the Partition of India in 1947. He studied at the Surendranath College, Dum Dum Motijheel College, City College, Kolkata - all affiliated with the University of Calcutta. Thereafter, he obtained his master's degree in Bengali from the University of Calcutta in 1954. He married Swati Banerjee on 26 February 1967. Their only son, Souvik, who stays in Boston, was born on 20 November 1967. Gangopadhyay was the founder editor of Krittibas, a seminal poetry magazine started publishing from 1953, that became a platform for a new generation of poets experimenting with many new forms in poetic themes, rhythms, and words. Later, he started writing for various publications of the Ananda Bazar group, a major publishing house in Kolkata and has been continuing it for many years. He became a friend of the beat poet Allen Ginsberg while he was travelling in India. Ginsberg mentioned Gangopadhyay most notedly in his poem September on Jessore Road. Gangopadhyay in return mentioned Ginsberg in some of his prose work. After serving five years as the Vice President, he was elected the President of the Sahitya Akademi on 20 February 2008. Author of well over 200 books, Sunil was a prolific writer who has excelled in different genres but declares poetry to be his 'first love'. His Nikhilesh and Neera series of poems (some of which have been translated as For You, Neera and Murmur in the Woods) have been extremely popular.