Sailajananda Mukhopadhyay (1901-1976) was a famous author of modernist fiction and a film director. He was a close friend of the poet Kazi Nazrul Islam and also one of the most renowned members of the Kallol Group of litterateurs in Bengali. Alongside the Kaila Kuthi series of short stories, which arguably pioneered the mode of writing about the lives of the oppressed people chiefly working in the coal mines of Bengal, his reputation rests to date on novels like Kaila Kuthir Deshe, Patal Puri, Paus Parban, Jhoro Hawa, Matir Ghar, Rakta Leka, Nandini, Dinmajur and Kharasrota. His intimate memoir on Kazi Nazrul Islam titled Keu Bhole Na Keu Bhole has been an archive of those bygone days when the muffassils of the West Burdwan district passed through unprecedented changes in economic, socio-political, and historical levels. Sailajananda also edited the modern Bengali journal, Kali Kalam. In his lifetime, he received in the year 1959 the prestigious Prafulla Kumar and Suresh Chandra Memorial Award.