Paul Detienne (30 December 1924,

Rochefort, Belgium Rochefort (; ) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Namur, Belgium, close to the Ardennes. On 1 January 2006, Rochefort had a total population of 12,038. The total area is 165.27 km² which gives a population de ...

– 31 October 2016,

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

) was a Belgian

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

priest, noted for his literary endeavours in the

Bengali language Bengali, also known by its endonym and exonym, endonym Bangla (, , ), is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language belonging to the Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. ...

. He began his religious training in the early 1940s and arrived in

West Bengal West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...

in 1949, where he stayed until 1977. He studied

and literature at St Xavier’s College, Kolkata and at

Santiniketan Shantiniketan (IPA: Help:IPA/Bengali, �antiniketɔn is a neighbourhood of Bolpur town in the Bolpur subdivision of Birbhum district in West Bengal, India, approximately 152 km north of Kolkata. It was established by Maharshi Devendra ...

and went on to become a noted writer of Bengali in his own right. He is best known for his column ''Diaryr Chhenra Pata'' (''ডায়েরির ছেঁড়াপাতা'',''Torn Pages of My Diary'') which first appeared in the premiere Bengali literary magazine '' Desh'' and ran on and off for many years. They were eventually compiled into a book. Other diaristic books he published include ''Atpoure Dinpanjee'' (''আটপৌরে দিনপঞ্জি'') and ''Rojnamcha'' (''রোজনামচা'') as well as the compilation ''Godyo Songraha'' (''গদ্য সংগ্রহ''). Father Detienne is credited with rescuing the Bengali ''Itihasmala'' (''ইতিহাসমালা'') by William Carey, the 18th-century missionary who did pioneering work on the Bengali language. He also translated writers such as Saint-Exupéry and

Mircea Eliade Mircea Eliade (; – April 22, 1986) was a Romanian History of religion, historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. One of the most influential scholars of religion of the 20th century and in ...

into Bengali. His life's work was rewarded by the Paschimbanga Bangla Academy in 2010, when he won the prestigious Rabindra Smriti Puroshkar. He returned to Belgium in 1977 and worked as hospital chaplain till retirement in 1989. He collaborated also with the Belgian Jesuit theological journa
Nouvelle revue théologique
as a book reviewer. He reviewed approximately 800 books in 20 years, which are availabl
online
Paul Detienne died in

on the 31 October 2016.Death news
/ref>

Literary prizes

* Narasingha Das Puroshkar 1972 * Rabindra Smriti Purashkar 2010

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Detienne, Paul 1924 births 2016 deaths Bengali-language writers 20th-century Belgian Jesuits 21st-century Belgian Jesuits 20th-century Indian Jesuits Belgian emigrants to India Belgian Indologists People from Rochefort, Belgium 20th-century Belgian writers Belgian translators 20th-century translators