Pabitra Sarkar

Pabitra Sarkar began with studying Bangla literature, which he began to teach at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India, becoming a Professor there in 1986. While early on the job, he received a Fulbright Scholarship and went to the USA to study Linguistics at the University of Chicago. He did his MA and Ph.D. there, and after a teaching stint at the University of Minnesota, returned to his own university. He became the Vice-Chancellor of Rabindra

Bharati University, Kolkata, in 1990, and the Vice-Chairman, West Bengal State Council of Higher Education during the years 1997-2003..

He was an active member of the theatre troupe-Nandikar-in Kolkata, and acted in several of its plays, most notably in the role of the Professor in Ionesco’s The Lesson. He also directed some plays. He has written extensively on theatre, and reviewed plays in major Bangla and English newspapers in Kolkata. His books on theatre are Natmancha Natyarup (a collection of essays on dramaturgy and Bangla theatre), Nataker Sandhane (‘In Search of Theatre’, containing his English and Bangla reviews and entries in Oxford Encyclopedia of Indian Theatre) and Nana Desh, Nana Swad (Bangla adaptations of short plays of Chekov, Mrozeck, and a few Japanese Kyogens). He has also translated Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party in Bangla, later produced by Ajitesh Banerje, one of the stalwarts of Bangla theatre during the sixties and seventies of the last century.