Bimal Mitra

Bengali novelist of Calcutta's fading aristocracy · 1912–1991

Bimal Mitra was born in Calcutta on 18 March 1912 and became one of the most widely read Bengali novelists of the twentieth century. His long novels chronicled the decline of Calcutta's feudal families and the changing city around them.

His best-known novel, Saheb Bibi Golam (1953), was filmed in Bengali in 1956 and then as Guru Dutt's Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962). When Guru Dutt and Abrar Alvi could not get through the Bengali text with a translator, Mitra came to a rented bungalow in Khandala and wrote the screenplay with Alvi. His other major works include Kori Diye Kinlam and Begum Mary Biswas. He died in Calcutta on 2 December 1991.