Raduga - Publishers Bengali Books

“Of course they do,” he chuckled. “But look at the inside back cover.”

Mitali’s research became a small exhibition. Older visitors wept seeing the covers. “This book taught me that snow exists,” one said. “We never saw snow in Bengal, but we felt it through Raduga.”

“Raduga,” the professor said, tapping a faded cigarette case, “means ‘rainbow’ in Russian. And for a generation of Bengali children, that rainbow brought stories from Moscow to Maniktala.” raduga publishers bengali books

Here’s a short, helpful story that explores and their connection to Bengali books. In the quiet, book-lined flat of an old professor of comparative literature in Kolkata, a young researcher named Mitali was struggling. She was studying the reception of Soviet children’s literature in post-independence Bengal. Her supervisor had mentioned a name she couldn’t find in any modern database: Raduga Publishers .

She called the professor. “They exist,” she whispered. “Of course they do,” he chuckled

Mitali found a gem: a 1985 Bengali edition of The Twelve Months , a Slovak folktale rendered in Soviet style. The paper was thick, almost cardboard-like. The price on the back: Rupees 8.50 . In the colophon, she saw the magic words: “Published by Raduga Publishers, Moscow. Printed in the USSR.”

Why did they do it? The Soviet Union wanted soft power. But the Bengali readers wanted stories. For a few decades, a child in Howrah could read about Russian snow maidens alongside Sukumar Ray’s nonsense verse, thanks to this quiet rainbow. “This book taught me that snow exists,” one said

She did. There was a small, rubber-stamped oval: “Allied Publishers Private Ltd., Calcutta – Sole Distributors.”

That was the missing link. never had a store in Kolkata. Instead, they collaborated with Allied Publishers (and later, the state-run Bookland in Esplanade) to distribute their translated books in India, including Bengali titles, as part of a cultural outreach program.