A LIFE OF THOUGHTS: Selections from the Writings of Chittaranjan Das

Chittaranjan Das (1923-2011) devoted his life to reading, writing, travelling, observing and critiquing society. He was a seeker and disseminator of ideas- from Denmark to Nepal and Agra to Ganjam-and he sought new ways of thinking which he endorsed only after subjecting them to relentless scrutiny. Though he published more than 200 books in different literary formats, the essay remained his medium of choice. In essay after essay, with a dazzling array of themes, he not only strove to expand the frontiers of knowledge, but also to shake the reader out of ethical and intellectual complacency.

Sampad Patnaik studied politics and history at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. He is a freelance journalist and columnist from Odisha. He writes on politics, culture and history for national media platforms such as The Wire, Scroll, Down to Earth, New Indian Express, and Open Magazine. He has been a visiting lecturer at Symbiosis International University (Pune). He has also served as an Assistant Editor with The Indian Express and as a business journalist with Reuters News.

Jatindra Kumar Nayak is a retired professor of English Literature. At present, he is a visiting professor of Literary Writing at Ashoka University (Haryana). He is a language expert with the New India Foundation, Bengaluru. He has served as a member of the English Advisory Board, Sahitya Akademi (2018-23). Nayak had won the Hutch-Crossword Indian fiction Translation Award (2004) and KATHA Translation Award (1997). Some of his translated works from Odia to English include A Time Elsewhere (Penguin, India, 2009); Six Acres and a Third (co-ed) (University of California Press, 2006) (Penguin, 2006); Astride the Wheel (Oxford University Press, 2003). His publications include Critical Discourse in Odia (co-ed) (London, Taylor and Francis, 2021) and Puri: Literary Representations in Odia and Bangla (Orient Blackswan; forthcoming).