Lover of Light Among Luminaries Dilip Kumar Roy

Author(s): Amruta Paresh Patel
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

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Dilip KUMAR Roy
lore. For well over half a century, he has been a prolific, distinguished writer, and has attained such an eminence in the domain of English as well as Bengali literature that a Foreword to his book is almost like holding a candle to the sun."?
But it seems that such a popular writer has not succeeded much in attracting the attention of modern Indo-English literary critics. Though K. R Srinivasa Iyengar has taken a serious note of Dilip Roy's work as a dramatist, poet and biographer, M.K. Naik" has just mentioned Dilip Roy's Among the Great as one of the excellent literary biographies of the period. It is surprising that writers of the survey books of Indian literature in English have ignored a powerful litterateur of Dilip Roy's eminence. It should easily strike to anyone who reads his works that in many ways he is unique and extraordinary. His genius is nourished by the classics of the East and the West. by the Bengali, English and French. A special synthesis of the best of the East and the West is realized in his mental make up. He is not only a voracious reader, but also a prolific writer. All forms of literature he has tried-fiction, poetry, drama, biography, autobiography and essay. In each one of them he is free from imitation and strongly himself. There are notable positive features in his literature and equally notable flaws. He could be described as a good stylist, too. His English is mellifluous and poetic. It is the expression of his personality even like the content of his writing. It would be certainly a fruitful exercise to subject it to stylistic analysis also, if somebody thinks it fit to try. In a way, he is a class by himself, and not easily comparable with any other writer in the literature in English in India or elsewhere.
This project aims at satisfying the want of systematic study of Dilip Roy's work. It endeavours to realize in critical terms the portrait of this great artist with his singular features. It is difficult to deal with the huge body of his works in all its aspects in a single book. The work would be too unwieldy if one tried to do it. Therefore, it is better to isolate a particular genre from it and to concentrate on its elucidation at length. Hence, the project confines itself only to the study of Dilip Roy's biographical and autobiographical writings available in English.
Notes :
1. Keshav Malik, "Roy, Dilip Kumar," Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature, ed.
Mohan Lal (New Delhi:Sahitya Academi, 1991), IV, 3706. 2. H. V. Kamath, “Foreword", in Dilip Kumar Roy, Sir Illuminates of Modern
India (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1982), p. v. 3. K. R. Srinivasa Iyenger, Indian Writing in English, 5th ed. (New Delhi:Sterling
Publishers. 1999), pp. 239, 616-619. 4. M.K. Naik, A History of Indian English Literature (1982; rpt. New Delhi:Sahitya
Academi, 1989), p. 138.