Shumona Sinha (also spelled ''Sumana Sinha'', Bengali: সুমনা সিনহা, born 27 June 1973) is an Indian-born naturalised French writer. She was born in

Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...

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 ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, and lives in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. In her interviews for the French media, Shumona Sinha claims that her homeland is no longer India, nor even France, but the French language.

Early life

Shumona

Sinha Sinha is a surname which originates in the Indian subcontinent. The surname is commonly used by many communities including the Bengali Kayastha and the Chitraguptavanshi Kayasthas of the Hindi Belt, and is common in India, Sri Lanka, and Bangla ...

was born in a Hindu middle-class family in Calcutta : her father was a professor of economics and her mother was a high school mathematics teacher. Her parents belonged to the scribal and landholding caste of

Bengali Kayastha Bengali Kayastha is a Bengali Hindu caste that originated from the Bengal region of Indian subcontinent, and is one of the main subgroups of the Kayastha community. The historical caste occupation of Kayasthas throughout India has been that of ...

s with ancestors who were

Zamindar A zamindar in the Indian subcontinent was an autonomous or semi-autonomous feudal lord of a ''zamindari'' (feudal estate). The term itself came into use during the Mughal Empire, when Persian was the official language; ''zamindar'' is the ...

s.Jean-Claude Perrier
Une Indienne à Paris
''livreshebdo.fr'', 22 November 22. As an adolescent, Shumona was an avid reader, surrounded by books bought by her parents or offered by her maternal aunt, Ratna Basu, a scholar and translator of German into sanscrit. In 1990, she received Bengali's ''Best Young Poet Award''.

Studies

In 1995, at the age of 22, Shumona Sinha started learning French at Ramkrishna Mission School of Foreign Languages at Calcutta. She views her decision to study French as her personal post-colonial revolt against English, language of the former colonizers and the second official language of India. In 1998, she studied political science and economy at the university of Calcutta. In 2001, she got a master's degree in French literature and linguistics from the Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages at

Hyderabad Hyderabad is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of , much ...

Career

In 2001, she was recruited by the French embassy in India to become an English-language assistant teacher in a junior high school in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

There, she gained an M-Phil in

French language French ( or ) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-R ...

and literature from the

Sorbonne University Sorbonne University () is a public research university located in Paris, France. The institution's legacy reaches back to the Middle Ages in 1257 when Sorbonne College was established by Robert de Sorbon as a constituent college of the Unive ...

. In 2008, she published her first novel ''Fenêtre sur l'abîme''. In the 2000s, she also translated and published several anthologies of Bengali and French poetry, together with her ex-husband, the writer Lionel Ray. In 2011, her second novel, ''Assommons les pauvres !'', was published at Éditions de l'Olivier, which won her the Prix Valery-Larbaud 2012 and the Prix Populiste in 2011; it was shortlisted for the

Prix Renaudot The Prix Théophraste-Renaudot or () is a French literary award. History The prize was created in 1926 by ten art critics awaiting the results of deliberation of the jury of the Prix Goncourt. While not officially related to the Prix Goncour ...

. ''Assommons les pauvres!'' is characterized by a harsh, but multilayered poetical literary reckoning with France's asylum system. The novel has become a part of scholarly programs to discuss the questions of identity, exile, writing as a woman, writing in a foreign language, the relationship between literature and politics, at the Notre Dame University in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, a course conducted by Alison Rice, at the

American University The American University (AU or American) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Its main campus spans 90-acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, in the Spri ...

in Paris by Anne-Marie Picard and at

Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (; ), abbreviated as INALCO, is a French Grand Etablissement with a specializing in the teaching of languages and cultures from the world. Its coverage spans languages of Central Europ ...

by Tirthankar Chanda. ''Assommons les pauvres'' was adapted by several theaters in Germany and in Austria, especially by Thalia Theater in Hambourg and the Freies Werkstatt theater in Cologne. The English translation of ''Assommons les pauvres'' was published by Les Fugitives, London in August 2022, and by Deep Vellum Publishers in the USA in August 2023. In her third novel ''Calcutta'', published in January 2014, Shumona Sinha goes down the memory lane of a Bengali family to describe the violent political history of West Bengal. The book was rewarded by the Grand Prix du Roman de la Société des gens de lettres and ''Prix du Rayonnement de la langue et de la littérature françaises'' of the

Académie française An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

. The English translation of ''Calcutta'' was published by SSP, Delhi, in November 2019. Her fourth novel ''Apatride'', published in January 2017, is a parallel portrait of two Bengali women, one living in a village near Calcutta, caught up in a peasant insurrection and a romantic misadventure with her cousin, causing her to perish; the other one living in Paris, in a fragmented post-CharlieHebdo society, where racism of all the colors prevails. In ''Le testament russe'', her fifth novel, published in March 2020 by Gallimard (Blanche), she describes the fascination of a young Bengali girl, Tania, for a Russian Jewish editor in 1920 who was the founder editor of Raduga Publishers. In ''L'autre nom du bonheur était français'', her sixth book, published in November 2022 by Gallimard (Blanche), she describes her journey from Bengali, her native language, to French, her language of love and création.
''La Grande Librairie'', 2022. In ''Souvenirs de ces époques nues'', her seventh novel, published in March 2024 by Gallimard (Blanche), she describes the soul searching of a French woman in an ashram in India, and the Hindu hegemony and political violence in current India. Shumona Sinha' books have been translated into German, Italian, Hungarian, Arabic and English.

Works

*''Fenêtre sur l'abîme''; 2008, Éditions de La Différence *''Assommons les pauvres !''; 2011, Éditions de l'Olivier *''Calcutta'', 2014; Éditions de l'Olivier *''Apatride'', 2017; Éditions de l'Olivier *''Le Testament russe'', 2020; Gallimard (Blanche) *''L'autre nom du bonheur était français'', 2022; Gallimard (Blanche) *''Souvenirs de ces époques nues'', 2024; Gallimard (Blanche)

Award and distinctions

* 2012 en littérature, 2012 : Prix Valery-Larbaud *

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

: Prix Eugène Dabit du roman populiste *

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

: Grand prix du roman de la Société des gens de lettres *

: Prix du rayonnement de la langue et de la littérature françaises de l'

* 2016 : Internationaler Literaturpreis

References

External links

''Shumona Sinha: "J'écris comme je crache"''

''Shumona Sinha und die Migration in Frankreich: Zornige Zeugenschaft''

''Tales from France's immigration office win German International Literature Award''

''Lit prize winner Shumona Sinha: 'As a writer, I search for the truth
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sinha, Shumona Writers from Kolkata 1973 births Living people Women writers from West Bengal Poets from West Bengal 20th-century Indian poets 20th-century Indian women writers 21st-century Indian women writers 21st-century Indian writers 21st-century Indian poets Bengali writers French people of Indian descent 20th-century French women writers 20th-century French non-fiction writers 21st-century French women writers 21st-century French non-fiction writers 21st-century Indian novelists Indian women poets Indian women novelists Novelists from West Bengal Naturalized citizens of France