Poets

Toru Dutt was an Indian poet who wrote in English and French, and made a mark in literature in spite of her premature death.

Early Life

She remained in Calcutta till November 1869, after which she and her sister Aru traveled to France, Italy and then England. She went to a school in France for the first time of her life and had an intimacy with French during that period.

Publishing Career

After publication of several translations and literary discussions, she published a Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields, a volume of French poems she had translated into English, with Saptahiksambad Press of Bhowanipore, India in 1876. Eight of the poems had been translated by her elder sister Aru. This volume came to the attention of Edmund Gosse in 1877, who reviewed it quite favorably in the Examiner that year. Sheaf would see a second Indian edition in 1878 and a third edition by Kegan Paul of London in 1880, but Dutt lived to see neither of these triumphs. she wrote many poems for the rank and the file.

Posthumous Publications

At the time of her death, she left behind two unpublished novels— Le Journal de Mademoiselle d’Arvers (thought to be the first novel in French by an Indian writer) and Bianca, or the Young Spanish Maiden (thought to be the first novel in English by an Indian woman writer)—in addition to an unfinished volume of original poems in English, Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan. Her father, Govin Chunder Dutt, ensured that thes..