Manoj Das (27 February 1934 – 27 April 2021) was an Indianauthor who wrote inOdia and English.[1] In 2000, Manoj Das was awarded theSaraswati Samman. He was awardedPadma Shri in 2001,[2] the fourth-highestCivilian Award in India, andPadma Bhusan in 2020,[3] the third-highestCivilian Award in India for his contribution to the field ofLiterature & Education.
Kendra Sahitya Akademi has bestowed its highest award (also India's highest literary award) i.eSahitya Akademi Award Fellowship.[4]
In 1971, through extensive research conducted in the archives of London and Edinburgh, he uncovered lesser-known aspects of India's freedom struggle during the early 1900s, led bySri Aurobindo. This significant contribution earned him the inaugural Sri Aurobindo Puraskar in Kolkata.
Das was born in the small coastal village,Balasore ofodisha. His father, Madhusudan Das,[7] worked under British Government. He had started writing early. His first work a book of poetry in Odia,Satavdira Artanada was published in 1949 when he was in high school. He launched a literary magazine,Diganta in 1950. He graduated high school in 1951. His first collection of short storiesSamudrara Kshyudha (Hunger of Sea) was in that year. He was active in student politics while studying BA at Cuttack College. He was a youth leader with radical views in his college days and spent a year in jail for his revolutionary activities. In 1959 he was a delegate to the Afro-Asian students' conference atBandung, Indonesia. He did not complete his degree in Cuttack. He ultimately finished his graduation from Samanta Chandra Shekhar College, Puri in 1955. During his college years, he kept on writing and published a novelJeebanara Swada, a collection of short storiesVishakanyar Kahani and a collection of poemsPadadhawani. After graduating with a degree in English literature, he got a post-graduate degree in English literature fromRavenshaw College. After a short stint as a lecturer atChrist College (Cuttack), he joined Sri Aurobindo Ashram at Puducherry.[8] Since 1963, he has been professor of English Literature at Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Puducherry.[9]
Das edited a cultural magazine,The Heritage, published from Chennai in 1985-1989.[11] The magazine is no longer in circulation.[12]
He wrote columns on quest for finding eternal truth in common lives in India’s national dailies likeThe Times of India, The Hindustan Times, The Hindu andThe Statesman.[13][14]
Das is perhaps the foremost bilingual Odia writer and a master of dramatic expression both in his English and Odia short stories and novels. Das has been compared toVishnu Sharma, in modernOdia literature for his magnificent style[15][16] and for the fact that, he is one of the beststory-tellers in India in modern times.[17][18] Over the years many research scholars have done their doctoral thesis on the works of Manoj Das, P. Raja being the first scholar to do so.
Among the other important positions that Das held were, Member, General Council,[clarification needed]Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi 1998–2002, and Author-consultant, Ministry of Education,Government of Singapore, 1983–85. He was the leader of the Indian delegation of writers to China (1999).
Graham Greene once said, "I have read the stories of Manoj Das with great pleasure. He will certainly take a place on my shelves besides the stories of Narayan. I imagine Odisha is far from Malgudi, but there is the same quality in his stories with perhaps an added mystery."[32]
^"Manoj Das".batoi.com. 2012. Archived fromthe original on 17 December 2012. Retrieved17 July 2012.He wrote columns in India's national dailies like The Times of India, The Hindustan Times, The Hindu and The Statesman.
^"K.K. Birla Foundation".kkbirlafoundation.org. 2009. Archived fromthe original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved17 July 2012.Year: 2000 Recipient: Shri Manoj Das Name of Book: Amruta Phala (Oriya : Novel)
^Das, Manoj (2019).Śesha tāṅtrīkara sandhānarē / Sesha tantrikara sandhanare / by Manoj Das (in Odia). Kaṭaka: Jagannātha Ratha.ISBN978-81-7406-035-8.OCLC1104218976.
^"Indian Review"(PDF).worldofmanojdas.in. Retrieved18 October 2025.
^"Thinking through silence".The Hindu. 2001. Archived fromthe original on 25 January 2013. Retrieved16 July 2012.Graham Greene, who happened to read his short stories during the last phase of his life, wrote, Manoj Das's stories 'will certainly take a place on my shelves beside the stories of Narayan. I imagine Odisha is far from Malgudi, but there is the same quality in his stories, with perhaps an added mystery.'
