THE COLLECTION
Scholar, editor-publisher, translator, lexicographer, Samik Bandyopadhyay is also a bibliophile of repute.

Over the past six decades, he has meticulously collected over 40,000 books and periodicals from every branch of social sciences, Marxist thought, every genre of literature, fine arts, performing arts and cinema.

Today, the collection includes rare first editions and out-of-print titles, as well as books that have stories attached to them – stories that cover pieces of history.

The collection also includes 5000 titles that belonged to his father Sunit Kumar Bandyopadhyay (1894-1960) and has books from the mid-nineteenth century, covering in depth trends and developments in European literature from the sixteenth century; first editions of the works of Rabindranath Tagore; a substantial body of Marxist classics; and rare collections of English and Bengali literary periodicals like The Times Literary Supplement, Criterion (edited by T S Eliot), and Prabasi from the 1930s.

THE VISION
Guided by a vision to nurture future generations of researchers and scholars, on his 81st birthday, Samik Bandyopadhyay is gifting his invaluable collection of 40,000 books and periodicals to Boi Baibhav Foundation to create a one-of-its-kind library - one that will be a repository of India's literary and cultural heritage.
It would be a unique library – where the books will be catalogued under the collector’s guidance, stories of rare books will be told by the collector himself and the space will be open to others for generations to come.

THE PLAN
Boi Baibhav Foundation is initiating a process of cataloguing the books and renting a dedicated space for setting up a reading room. This is the first phase. For this, we are launching this fundraising drive.  

We thank you for being part of this incredible vision.