Maitreyi Devi

Who was Maitreyi Devi?

Maitreyi Devi was a Bengali-born Indian poet and novelist, the daughter of philosopher Surendranath Dasgupta and protegée of poet Rabindranath Tagore. She was the founder of the Council for the Promotion of Communal Harmony in 1964, and vice-president of the All-India Women’s Coordinating Council. Her first book of verse appeared when she was sixteen, with a preface by Rabindranath Tagore. She wrote Rabindranath--the man behind his poetry. She was the basis for the main character in Romanian-born writer Mircea Eliade's 1933 novel Bengal Nights. In her Na Hanyate novel, written as a response to Bengal Nights, Maitreyi Devi denied claims of a sexual affair between her and Eliade during the latter's sojourn in British India.