An Acre of Green Grass

Buddhadeva Bose (1908-1974) is known to readers of Bengali as perhaps the greatest and most versatile talent in the Bengali literary sphere succeeding Tagore. Poet, playwright, novelist, short-story writer, literary critic, and essayist of great distinction, he is one of the most important literary personalities of twentieth century Bengali literature. Few realize that Buddhadeva Bose was also one of the best writers of English prose in modern Indian writing in English. An Acre of Green Grass brings together for the first time a selection of his best prose in the English language on subjects ranging from world literature, Bengali writers, and Tagore to Bengali gastronomy, Picasso, and the films of Charlie Chaplin. These wide-ranging and diverse essays are not only a delight to read, they are some of the best literary criticism written by an Indian critic in English since Independence and deserve a much wider audience than they have had so far.