‘Folktales from Bengal’ is the first in the series. He is a founder of Project: Bengal Moves West, an endeavour to translate Bengal’s best works in literature to English. Soham Saha is a writer of literary and speculative fiction, whose works have appeared in science fiction anthologies published online. I express my gratitude to all the writers who took the effort of telling and retelling the stories to the newer generations of Bengal, making this collection possible. While searching for the stories, I went through various collections of Bengali folk tales, the most notable of which are "Tuntunir Golpo"(Tales of Tuntuni) by Upendrakishore Ray, and “Thakumar Jhuli" (Tales from Grandmother) by Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumdar, both bestsellers in the Bangla language.
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I remember the endless nights I spent reading these stories, and hope that my young readers would share at least a part of that joy. I had in my mind not the critical reader, but the curious children whom these stories were originally told for. While retelling the stories, I tried to keep the original Bengali essence of the stories intact while keeping the stories fluid. Some of these stories have appeared in collections of Indian folk tales, but this would be the first time an organized collection of Bengal's folk tales (in English) has been made. “ Folktales from Bengal” is a collection of stories originating in Bengal, which have entertained millions of Bengali children for generations. I was browsing through collections of folk tales in the library in the National University of Singapore, and was stunned when I realized that so far, there had not been any attempt at making a child friendly, yet exclusive collection of Bengali folk tales in English. With my interest rekindled, I decided to re-read the collections of Bengali folk tales, first in Bangla, my native tongue, and then in English, just for the sake of it. I remembered my childhood days, when I took delight in these stories myself.
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In a lazy summer afternoon, I heard my aunt telling her little girl a story to put her to sleep. To my loving parents, who bought me my first fairy tale book, and opened the pathway to never ending awe.