Samaresh Basu (1924-88), a major figure in modern Bengali fiction, has been at the centre of some of the most acrimonious controversies on issués relating to politics and sexuality as they have surfaced in his works. The span of experiences he has covered includes working class life, political activism, police interrogation, imprisonment, psychological tensions and creativity. But over and above everything else, Basu remains 'the most representative storyteller of Bengal's suburban life, as distinct from other well-known Bengali authors who had faithfully painted the life and problems of either Bengal's rural society, or the urban middle class. Basu draws on his lived experience of Calcutta's "half- rural, half-urban," industrial suburbs, where he had been a worker in a gun and shell factory, a trade union activist, who spent a term in prison. Sumanta Banerjee, who has translated and introduced a collection of Basu's stories in English for the first time, is the author of The Simmering Revolution, The Thema Book of Naxalite Poetry, and The Parlour and the Streets.