Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- [c. 1896]-2022 (Creation)
Level of description
Fonds
Extent and medium
0.013 cubic metres (1 small box, 1 ringed box)
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Dorothy Noel (Dorf) Bonarjee was born in Bareilly, India, on 29 August 1894 the second of the three children of Debendra Nath and Janet Bonarjee. The family moved to London in 1904, when Dorothy was ten. She and her elder brother Bertie enrolled at UCW Aberystwyth in 1912, graduating in 1916. She played an active part in academic life there but is most noted for winning the chair at the 1914 college eisteddfod for a poem on Owain Lawgoch, being simultaneously the first woman and the first non-European to do so. Some nineteen of her poems were published in the journals The Dragon, 1913-1917, and The Welsh Outlook, 1914-1919. In 1917 she became the first woman to gain an internal law degree from University College, London.
Bonarjee subsequently moved to France and married the artist Paul Surtel in 1921. They had two children, Denis who died in infancy and Claire Aruna (1925-2009). The marriage ended in divorce in 1938. Bonarjee spent her remaining days at Jaubergue, her house and vineyard in Gonfaron, Provence. Bonarjee appears to have continued to occasionally compose poetry in France but none appears to have been published in her lifetime; she also co-translated Aurobindo's Heraclitus into French (see Shri Aurobindo, Heraclite, preface by Mario Meunier, trans. by D. N. Bonarjee and Jean Herbert (Paris, [1944])). Dorothy Bonarjee died in 1983.
A selection of her poetry was published in The Hindu Bard: The Poetry of Dorothy 'Dorf' Bonarjee, ed. and introduced by Mohini Gupta and Andrew Whitehead (Aberystwyth: Honno, 2023).
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Sheela Bonarjee, niece of Dorothy Bonarjee; Leicester; Donation; April 2023; 994844168102419.
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Papers of, and relating to, Dorothy Bonarjee, [c. 1896]-2022, including poetry, letters, photographs, family documents and printed material.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
System of arrangement
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
Readers consulting modern papers in the National Library of Wales are required to abide by the conditions set out in information provided when applying for their Readers' Tickets, whereby the reader shall become responsible for compliance with the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation 2018 in relation to any processing by them of personal data obtained from modern records held at the Library.
Conditions governing reproduction
Usual copyright laws apply.
Language of material
- English
- French
Script of material
Language and script notes
English, French.
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
Finding aids
Generated finding aid
Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Related units of description
Notes area
Note
Title based on contents of fonds.
Alternative identifier(s)
Alma system control number
Access points
Subject access points
Place access points
Name access points
- Bonarjee, D. N. -- Archives (Subject)
Genre access points
Description control area
Description identifier
Institution identifier
Rules and/or conventions used
Description follows NLW guidelines based on ISAD(G) 2nd ed.; AACR2; and LCSH
Status
Level of detail
Dates of creation revision deletion
September 2023.
Language(s)
Script(s)
Sources
The following sources were used in the compilation of this description: The Hindu Bard: The Poetry of Dorothy Bonarjee, ed. and introduced by Mohini Gupta and Andrew Whitehead (Aberystwyth, 2023); Beth R. Jenkins, 'Bonarjee, Dorothy Noel ('Dorf') (1894-1983), poet and lawyer', Dictionary of Welsh Biography https://biography.wales/article/s12-BONA-NOE-1894 [accessed 4 September 2023]; Andrew Whitehead's Blog https://www.andrewwhitehead.net/blog [accessed 6 September 2023]; Andrew Whitehead, '"She is beautiful but she is Indian": The student who became a Welsh bard at 19', BBC News, 28 December 2020 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-55430717 [accessed 6 September 2023].
Archivist's note
Description compiled by Rhys Jones.