Home

Somdatta Mandal is a former Professor of English and ex-Chairperson, Department of English, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, India. Graduating from the University of Calcutta she received her M.Phil and Ph.D. degrees from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. A recipient of several prestigious fellowships like the Fulbright Research and Teaching Fellowships, British Council Charles Wallace Trust Fellowship, Rockefeller Residency at Bellagio, Italy, Salzburg Seminar and Shastri Indo-Canadian Faculty Enrichment Fellowship, she has been published widely both nationally and internationally.

Her publications include the following  volumes:

• Film and Fiction: Words Into Image (2005), 

• Reflections, Refractions, and Rejections: Three American Writers and the Celluloid World  (2002). 

• Vignettes of Life Once More (2019)

• Bollywood, Tollywood and Beyond: Literary Essays on Indian Films  (2021)

Her translated volumes are:

• The Murderer  by Manik Bandyopadhyay (2022)

• Manottama: Narrative of a Sorrowful Wife (Anonymous) (2021)

• The Last Days of Rabindranath Tagore in Memoirs (2021)

• 'Kobi' & 'Rani': Memoirs and Correspondences of Nirmalkumari Mahalanobis and Rabindranath Tagore (2020)

• The Journey of a Bengali Woman to Japan and Other Essays by Hariprabha Takeda (1915). 2019.

• The Popularity of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata: A Comparative Analysis by Sukumari Bhattacharji ( jointly with Tanika Sarkar) (2018), 

• Gleanings of the Road (Pather Sonchoy) by Rabindranath Tagore (2018), 

• Crossing Many Seas (Onek Sagor Periye) by Chitrita Devi (2018), 

• A Bengali Lady in England (England-e Bangamohila) by Krishnabhabini Das (2015), rpt. 2020 in paperback edition.

• Wanderlust: Travels of the Tagore Family (2014)

• The Westward Traveller (Paschimjatriki) by Durgabati Ghose (2010). 

Among her editorial ventures are:

• Rituparno Ghosh On/ And Film .  Edited along with Koushik Mondal. (2022)

• Indian Travel Narratives: New Perspectives (2021)

• "India and Travel Narratives." Special Issue of Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities (Volume 12.3), June, 2020.

•  The Persecuted or Dramatic Scenes Illustrative of Present State of Hindoo Society in Calcutta (1831) by Krishna Mohana Banerjea (2018), 

• A Journal of Forty-Eight Hours of the Year 1945  by Kylas Chunder Dutt (2014), 

• Margaret Atwood: Critical Perspectives (2014),  

• Journeys: Indian Travel Writing  (2013),

• Indian Travel Narratives (2010), 

• Bharati Mukherjee: Critical Perspectives (2010)

• Literature in Times of Violence (2008) (with Gulshan Kataria); 

• The Indian ImagiNation: Colonial and Postcolonial Literature and Culture (2007); 

• Ethnic Literatures of America: Diaspora and Intercultural Studies (2005) with (Himadri Lahiri); 

• The American Literary Mosaic (2003) with T.S. Anand; 

• Banga-bibhag: Samajik, Sangskritik O Rajnaitik Protifalan  (The Partition of Bengal: Cultural and Socio-Political Reflections,2002) (with Shukla Hazra); 

• The Ernest Hemingway Companion (2002); 

• Cross-Cultural Transactions on Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States (2002); 

• The Diasporic Imagination; Asian American Writing (3 vols) (2000); 

• William Faulkner: A Centennial Tribute(1999); 

• F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Centennial Tribute (2 vols) 1997.

She has also edited six volumes of Apperception: Journal of the Department of English & Other Modern European Languages, Visva-Bharati:

• Volume X (July 2018; Special Issue on Drama and Theatre: Text and Performance);

•  Volume IX (October 2017), Volume VIII (July 2017), 

• Volume VII (Special Issue on ‘Rabindranath Tagore’) 2014; 

• Volume IV (Special Issue on ‘Translation and Related Issues’) 2009;

•  Volume II (Special Issue on ‘Multicultural America’), 2005. 

A regular book reviewer, she has more than 125 reviews to her credit.

In addition to the teaching and administrative activities in her university, she served as a paper-setter and examiner for MA English in various universities across India. She has also adjudicated more than 145 M.Phil and Ph.D. dissertations at various universities in India and abroad. Apart from delivering keynote speeches and specially invited lectures at seminars and conferences, she has also acted as Resource Person at several UGC Refresher Courses for teachers at various universities across India.

Her areas of interest are contemporary fiction, film and culture studies, Diaspora studies and translation. She has received a Sahitya Akademi award for translating short fiction and the Meenakshi Mukherjee Memorial Prize from Indian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies for the best published research article during 2012-13. 

She can be contacted at somdattam@gmail.com.