21 Facts About Toru Dutt

Tarulatta Datta, popularly known as Toru Dutt was an Indian Bengali poet and translator from British India, who wrote in English and French.

Toru Dutt is among the founding figures of Indo-Anglian literature, alongside Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, Manmohan Ghose, and Sarojini Naidu.

Toru Dutt is known for her volumes of poetry in English, Sita, A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields and Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan, and for a novel in French, Le Journal de Mademoiselle d'Arvers.

Toru Dutt's poems explore themes of loneliness, longing, patriotism and nostalgia.

Toru Dutt was born in Calcutta on 4 March 1856 to a well-respected Bengali kayastha family.

Toru Dutt was educated at home by her father and by an Indian Christian tutor, Babu Shib Chunder Banerjee.

Toru Dutt learnt French, English, and eventually Sanskrit, in addition to her first language, Bengali.

Toru Dutt learned stories of ancient India from her mother.

In 1869, when Toru Dutt was 13, Toru Dutt's family left India, making her and her sister some of the first Bengali girls to travel by sea to Europe.

In 1872, the University of Cambridge offered a lecture series, "Higher Lectures for Women", which Toru Dutt attended with her sister Aru.

Toru Dutt's correspondence refers to Merton Hall, the early name of Newnham College, and to Miss Clough as Principal of Newnham College.

Toru Dutt maintained a journal throughout their stay in Europe, recording all her experiences.

Sheaf saw a second Indian edition in 1878 and a third edition by Kegan Paul of London in 1880, but Toru Dutt lived to see neither of these.

Toru Dutt published translations of French poetry and literary articles in Bengal Magazine from March 1874 to March 1877.

Toru Dutt published some translations from Sanskrit in Bengal Magazine and Calcutta Review.

Toru Dutt had numerous items published in The Bengal Magazine and The Calcutta Review between March 1874 and March 1877.

When Toru Dutt returned to Calcutta in 1873 at the age of 17, she found it challenging to return to a culture that now seemed "an unhealthy place both morally and physically speaking" to her Europeanized and Christianized eyes.

Toru Dutt took consolation in reinvigorating her studies of Sanskrit with her father and hearing her mother's stories and songs about India.

The Toru Dutt family was one of the first Calcutta families to be strongly influenced by the presence of Christian catholic missionaries.

Toru Dutt's cousin Romesh Chandra Dutt was a writer and Indian civil servant.

Toru Dutt's father converted to Christianity in 1862, when she was six years old.