1954, Mrityu Bachharer Shesh Khata by Jibanananda Das [Hardcover]

In the last six years of his life, Jibanananda practically did not write any diaries, and he wrote very few poems. His final notebooks are filled with mundane, melancholic, and desperate fragments—plans on how to repay debts, where to secure new loans, whom to approach for jobs, drafts of unsent letters, tables of contents for books that would never be published, and disorganized notes on literary matters, perhaps points for a future novel. He humbled himself before institutions, publishers, friends, and relatives, doing everything he could to survive through writing, but he failed, deteriorated, and his light gradually dimmed. Eventually, he went under a tram. But, before he left, he held the firm belief that although he was currently living 'without food,' a better day would come in the future when the true value of his writing would be recognized, though he would not be around to see it.

The final notebook from 1954 is a suffocating document of the last year of his life, clinging to the last straws of survival and ultimate demise.