Jibanananda Das (1899-1954) is one of the most important poets of Bengal. Nevertheless, he remains a poet little-known outside West Bengal and Bangladesh. Perhaps due to the absence of competent translations into English and other languages, Das’s achievement as a poet remains unrepresented in world literature.

This is the third edition of a representative selection of Jibanananda's poems, designed to emphasize how Das’s poems are great treasures of Bengali, and even world literature, through the medium of translation. Fakrul Alam’s uniquely competent English renderings were done originally to mark the birth centenary celebrations of Jibanananda Das in 1999. Alam attempts to give through his translations a sampling of the full range of Das’s verse. Lovers of poetry outside the Bengali-speaking world should get through them a sense of the richness of Das’s poetry, his growth as a poet, and the extraordinary range of his work.

The fact that the two earlier editions were sold out testify to the readability of the collection. Hopefully, this edition will continue not only to please its readers, but also give them a sense of the aesthetic excellence of the poet's work and his continuing relevance in our time, for Das is truly a poet with a sensibility that is romantic and yet modern, ecologically sensitive and human, all too human!