Nabarun Bhattacharya

Nabarun Bhattacharya (23 June 1948 – 31 July 2014) was an Indian Bengali writer who was committed to a revolutionary and radical aesthetics. He was born at Baharampur (Berhampur), West Bengal. He was the only child of actor, playwright Bijon Bhattacharya and writer, activist Mahashweta Devi.
His novel, Herbert (1993), which was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award, and adapted into a film of the same name in 2005, by Suman Mukhopadhyay.

He studied in Kolkata, first Geology, then English, from Calcutta University.

In an interview, Nabarun has said that once he used to be a hardline communist but is no longer so. In response to a question regarding what he thinks to be the most prominent ideological change in him, he says "I am no longer anthropocentric".

Aside from fiction, he has also written poetry, of which Ei Mrityu Upotyoka Aaamaar Desh Na (This Valley of Death Is Not My Country) is an example.

The characters called Fyataru

His magic realist writings introduced a strange set of human beings to Bengali readers, called Fyataru (fyat: the sound created by kites while they are flown; otherwise, fyat has also a hint of someone worthless, deriving from the words foto, faaltu; uru: related to flying), who are an anarchic underclass fond of sabotage and are capable of flying whenever they utter the mantra 'fyat fyat sh(n)aai sh(n)aai' (This mantra was made into a song by the popular Bangla band Chandrabindoo in one of its albums). They appear in his books Mausoleum, Kaangaal Maalshaat, Fatarur Bombachaak and Fyatarur Kumbhipaak and Mobloge Novel. Suman Mukhopadhyay, who was basically from a theatrical background, dramatized Kaangaal Maalshaat.

• Kaangaal Maalshaat (Hooghly: Saptarshi Prakashan, 2003)
• Herbert (Kolkata: Deys, 1994)
• Lubdhak (Barasat: Abhijan Publishers, 2006)
• Ei Mrityu Upotyoka Aamaar Desh Na (Hooghly: Saptarshi, 2004)
• Halaljhanda o Onyanyo (Hooghly: Saptarshi, 2009)
• Mahajaaner Aayna (Kolkata: Bhashabandhan, 2010)
• Fyaturur Kumbhipak (Kolkata: Bhashabandhan)
• Raater Circus (Kolkata: Bhashabandhan)
• Anarir Naarigyan (Kolkata: Bhashabandhan)

Nabarun Bhattacharya died of intestinal cancer at Thakurpukur cancer hospital, Kolkata on 31 July 2014.