Sujit Mukherjee

Sujit Mukherjee (21 August 1930 – 14 January 2003) was an Indian writer, translator, literary critic, publisher, teacher and cricketer.

Sujit Mukherjee
Born(1930-08-21)21 August 1930
Ariadaha, Bengal, British India
Died14 January 2003(2003-01-14) (aged 72)
Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India
EducationSt. Xavier's High School, Patna
Alma materPatna College
SpouseMeenakshi Mukherjee

Career

Sujit Mukherjee was born in the village of Ariadaha, south of Calcutta,[1] and educated at St. Xavier's High School, Patna, Patna College (MA) and the University of Pennsylvania (PhD). He taught at Patna College, at the National Defence Academy in Khadakwasla, and at the University of Poona before joining Orient Longman in 1970, where he served as Chief Publisher until 1986.[2]

He was a prolific writer on a range of literary topics, as well as a translator from Bangla into English.

Cricket
Sujit Mukherjee
Cricket information
RoleBatsman
Domestic team information
YearsTeam
1951–52 to 1959–60Bihar
Career statistics
Competition First-class
Matches 5
Runs scored 79
Batting average 11.28
100s/50s 0/0
Top score 33
Balls bowled 6
Wickets 0
Bowling average –
5 wickets in innings –
10 wickets in match –
Best bowling –
Catches/stumpings 3/–
Source: Cricket Archive, 29 December 2014

Despite having to wear thick glasses to compensate for his myopia,[3] Mukherjee had a long career as a batsman in university, club and first-class cricket. He played five first-class matches as a middle-order batsman for Bihar between 1951 and 1960. He made his highest score, 33, in his first innings in 1951–52.[4]

Returning to the side for Bihar's last Ranji Trophy game in 1958–59, he made the equal top score for the match, 17 not out, in the second innings in a match in Patna in which only 188 runs were scored for the loss of 32 wickets. After being dismissed for 49 in their first innings, Bihar needed 45 to beat Orissa and were 19 for 2 when Mukherjee came to the wicket and shared an unbroken partnership of 27, the highest partnership of the match, to take Bihar to victory.[5]

He became a noted cricket writer, "a wry observer of both the game and academic pretentiousness" who produced "five [sic] elegant cricket books".[6] Ramachandra Guha described them as "the finest books ever written on cricket by an Indian".[7] Mukherjee also did radio commentary for Test cricket between 1975 and 1978.[8]

Personal life

His wife Meenakshi Mukherjee, who had been one of his early students, was also a literary scholar. They had two daughters.[9] They lived the final years of their lives in Hyderabad.

Sujit Mukherjee Memorial Lecture

The Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Hyderabad inaugurated the annual Sujit Mukherjee Memorial Lecture in 2014. Lecturers and the titles of their lectures have been:

Books

On cricket
  • The Romance of Indian Cricket 1968
  • Playing for India 1972
  • Between Indian Wickets 1977
  • Matched Winners 1996
  • Autobiography of an Unknown Cricketer 1997
  • An Indian Cricket Century: Selected Writings 2002

On literature
  • A Passage to America: Reception of Rabindranath Tagore in USA 1913–1941 1964
  • Indian Essays in American Literature: Papers in Honour of Robert A. Spiller 1969 (edited with D.V.K. Raghavacharyulu)
  • Towards a Literary History of India 1975
  • Some Positions on a Literary History of India 1980
  • Translation as Discovery and Other Essays on Indian Literature in English Translation 1981
  • The Idea of an Indian Literature: A Book of Readings 1981 (edited)
  • Forster and Further: The Tradition of Anglo-Indian Fiction 1993
  • A Dictionary of Indian Literature: Volume I (Beginnings to 1850) 1998

Translations into English
  • Bewitched Veil (Monindra Ray’s Mohini Adal) 1968
  • Naked King and Other Poems (poems by Nirendranath Chakrabarty, translated jointly with Meenakshi Mukherjee) 1975
  • Book of Yudhishthir (Buddhadeb Bose's Mahabharater Katha) 1986
  • Three Companions (three long stories by Rabindranath Tagore) 1992
  • Gora (Rabindranath Tagore's novel Gora) 1997
  • Modern Poetry and Sanskriti Kavya (a long essay by Buddhadeb Bose) 1997

References
  1. Sujit Mukherjee, Autobiography of an Unknown Cricketer, Ravi Dayal, Delhi, 1996, p. 161.
  2. Sujit Mukherjee: Career Retrieved 30 December 2014.
  3. Mukherjee, Autobiography of an Unknown Cricketer, pp. 24–25.
  4. Uttar Pradesh v Bihar 1951–52
  5. Bihar v Orissa 1958–59
  6. Wisden 2004, p. 1549.
  7. Ramachandra Guha, "The Gentleman Scholar: Sujit Mukherjee", in The Last Liberal and Other Essays, Permanent Black, Delhi, 2004, pp. 229–36.
  8. Sujit Mukherjee: Other activities Retrieved 30 December 2014.
  9. "Remembering Sujit" by Sachidananda Mohanty Retrieved 30 December 2014.
  10. "Sujit Mukherjee Memorial Lecture by Nabaneeta Dev Sen". YouTube. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
  11. http://www.thehansindia.com/posts/index/2015-04-18/Insights-of-Indian-literature-145315
  12. "Sujit Mukherjee Memorial Lecture". UoH herald. Retrieved 17 February 2016.
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