BANKIM CHANDRA CHATTERJI (1838-94) is widely acknowledged as perhaps the most creative genius of Bengali literature. Beginning his literary career as a writer of verse, he soon realised that poetry was not his metier and turned to fiction. Bengali fiction owes much of its present form to the trend that Bankim Chandra set with Durgesh Nandini (1865), Kapal Kundala (1866), Krishnakanter Will (1878), Rajani and other books. He broke the dry monotony of Bengali prose, pruned its verbosity and gave it a twist of informality and intimacy.