Sibnarayan Ray - Life and Career

Life and Career

On 20 January 1921, Sibnarayan Ray was born to Professor Upendranath Bidyabhushan Shastri (1867-1959) and poetess Rajkumari Roy (1882-1973). in Calcutta, India. His father was a thinker-writer who had published more than 50 books in Sanskrit and English. His mother too was a literary person who regularly contributed to magazines like Bamabodhini, Shibam, Antapur and Mahila. No wonder that Sibnarayan started writing in his teens. He graduated from the University of Calcutta in English language and literature. He was married to Gita Ray.

He joined the City College, Kolkata, a constituent undergraduate college of the University of Calcutta in 1945 at the age of twenty four as a lecturer of English literature and taught there for long fifteen years. He was reader and head of the Department of Indian Studies at the University of Melbourne from 1963 until late-1980.

Ray went to many universities around the world as visiting professor including School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) under the University of London and department of Social Science in the University of Chicago. He was invited to deliver lectures in many universities in France, Germany, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland and Hungary. As a visiting professor he taught courses in Clare College of the Cambridge University, Goethe University in Frankfurt and at Stanford University.

After returning to Calcutta from Melbourne, he worked as Director of the Rabindra Bhavan at Visva-Bharati University, from 1981 to 1983. He was an Emeritus Fellow on Literature of the Department of Culture, Government of India. Also he worked as the Chairman of the Raja Rammohan Roy and as Senior research Fellow at the Indian Council of Historical Research. Notably he worked as the Executive Secretary of the Indian Renaissance Institute (IRI) from 1960 to 1969.

He died in Shantiniketan on 26 February 2008. Following his wishes, his mortal remains were donated to the SSKM Hospital in Calcutta.