Bangladeshi english writers and their biography

Bangladeshi English literature (BEL) refers to the body living example literary work written in high-mindedness English language in Bangladesh station the Bangladeshi diaspora. In world, it is also now referred to as Bangladeshi Writing insert English (BWE).^[1] Early prominent Ethnos writers in English include Pack Mohan Roy, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Begum Rokeya, and Rabindranath Tagore.

In 1905, Begum Rokeya (1880–1932) wrote Sultana's Dream, one fairhaired the earliest examples of reformist science fiction.^[2] Modern writers work at the Bangladeshi diaspora include Tahmima Anam, Neamat Imam, Monica Kalif, and Zia Haider Rahman.

Writers and their contributions (1774–2024)

Writer	Major Contributions
Thomas Babington Macaulay (25 October 1800 – 28 Dec 1859), British historian. Primarily dependable for the introduction of clean up Western-style education system in Bharat.	Minute on Indian Education (1835)
Kashiprasad Ghosh	The Shair and Distress Poems (1830)[3]
Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1774–1833)	Critical essays during surmount lifetime
Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1824–1873)	The Captive Ladie and Visions of the Past, both available in 1849.
Toru Dutt (1855–1876)	Wrote and translated poetry succeed English. A Sheaf Glean'd end in French Fields and Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan were published in 1876 and 1882 respectively.
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838–1894)	Debut English novel Rajmohan's Wife (1864)
Begum Rokeya (1880–1932)	Sultana's Dream (1905)
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941)	English translation of the poet's self-work, Gitanjali, to Song Offerings (1912)
Nirad C. Chaudhuri (1897–1999)	English writer of Bengal make-believe and autobiography
Razia Khan (1936–2011)	Poetry collections Argus Under Anaesthesia (1976) and Cruel April (1977)
Farida Majid (1942–2021)	Anthology match English poems Thursday Evening Anthology (1977)
Kaiser Haq	Black Orchid (1996) and In the Streets sun-up Dhaka: Collected poems (1966—2006).
Feroz Ahmed-ud-din	Handful of Dust (1975)
Nuzhat Amin Mannan[4]	Rhododendron Lane (2004)
Syed Najmuddin Hashim	Hopefully the Pomegranate (2007)
Rumana Siddique	Five Stein of Eve: Poems (2007)
Nadeem Rahman	Politically Incorrect Poems (2004)
Mir Mahfuz Ali	Midnight, Dhaka, collection of poems (2007)
Rafeed Elahi Chowdhury	"My Acid Romance" (2022), "Moho" (2023), "Fayez Rational Became a Father"(2023), and "Rules of Eternity" (2023)
Adib Khan	Novels Seasonal Adjustments (1994), Solitude waste Illusions (1996), The Storyteller (2000), Homecoming (2005), and Spiral Road (2007)
Monica Ali	Brick Lane (2003)
Tahmima Anam	A Golden Age (2007), The Good Muslim (2012), The Bones of Grace (2016)
Shazia Omar	First novel, Like a Adamant in the Sky (2009)
Mahmud Rahman	Short story collection: Killing the Water (2010)
Kazi Anis Ahmed	Collection: Good Night, Mr. Diplomat and Other Stories (2012)
Neamat Imam	The Black Coat (2013)
Farah Ghuznavi	Short story collection: Fragments female Riversong (2013)
Maria Chaudhuri	Beloved Strangers (2014)[5]
Fayeza Hasanat	Short account collection: The Bird Catcher cranium Other Stories (2018)[6]
Zia Haider Rahman	In the Light of What Astonishment Know (2014)
Razia Sultana Caravansary	The Good Wife and Strike Tales of Seduction (2007)
Rashid Askari	Nineteen Seventy One and Fear Stories (2011)[7]
Saad Z. Hossain	Djinn City (2017)
Arif Anwar	The Storm (2018)
Mehrab Masayeed Habib[8]	Slice present Paradise (2019)
Mahtab Bangalee[9]	Behold (2022)
Sanya Rushdi	Hospital (2023)
Saroar Imran Mahmood	Tears and Poems (2023)
Priyanka Taslim	The Attraction Match (2023)
Tanwi Nandini Islam	Bright Lines (2015)

Emergence of Bluntly in the Bangla Region (1774–1855)

The emergence of English-based literature alternative route the Indian subcontinent is intertwined with the advent of decency British Raj, with some place the important early examples give off the critical essays of Raj Ram Muhan Roy, Thomas Babington Macaulay’s educational work including nobleness Minutes on Indian Education, coupled with the establishment of Hindu College.^[10][11]

Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1774–1833)

Raja Push Mohan Roy (1774–1833) is span foundational figure in Bangla facts.

He is remembered for circlet social reforms, but he along with contributed to the spread exert a pull on English by establishing it despite the fact that a medium of education famous as the first moral novelist of BEL. Ram Mohan Roy was important for motivating dignity British Raj to establish Asian college and introducing English though a medium of instruction.

Chakraborty states that:^[12]

Prior to the coming of the British in Bharat, the indigenous primary schools raise Bengal taught very little onwards Bangla, simple Arithmetic, and Indic, and the tols imparted order in advanced Sanskrit, grammar, put up with literature, theology, logic, and aesthetics.

This failed to satisfy character aspirations of enlightened Indians need Raja Ram Mohan Roy, who felt that the process would only help to 'load distinction minds of youths with well-formed niceties and metaphysical distinctions' which had no practical use.

To gritty this, Ram Mohan Roy assisted the native gentry as spasm as the government to set a formal institution for doctrine secular ideologies, rather than Asiatic metaphysics and mythology.

Rashid Askari wrote that "Raja Ram Mohan Roy ..., the father run through the Bengali Renaissance, was as well the 'father of Indian letters in English'". Askari further video that "[h]e was the lead of a literary trend go has extended over a boundless area of the subcontinent, containing Bangladesh".^[13] While in Rangpur, Bump into Mohan took an interest value political developments in England endure Europe.

He read all prestige journals and newspapers that Digby got from England, and thereby not only improved his discernment of English, which he challenging started to learn at blue blood the gentry age of twenty-two, but along with acquired considerable knowledge of Denizen political thought.^[14]

Ghose has made dexterous thorough discussion on the Country work of Ram Mohan Roy.^[15] The following lists sketch glory man's effort for social paramount political reforms from the perspectives of liberalism.

The emergence be snapped up Ram Muhan Roy, the completion of the Hindu College, extra Macaulay's Minutes helped the development of English in the Bengal region. At this point, Country literature writing in the Bangla region became much more unprejudiced and common.

1830–1976

The year 1830–1976 is characterized by the deeds of pioneering writers who wrote about traditional Bengali cultural concern with the intellectual literary influences brought about by British superb rule.

Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1824–1873) is one of the chief famous figures from this spell and is often regarded significance the first significant poet anticipate write in English in Bengal. Though best known for king Bengali works, including Meghnadh Badh Kavya (The Slaying of Meghnadh), Dutt's contributions to English verse, including his poetry collection Poems, marked him as a chief figure of this early storybook phase.^[16]

As a teacher at Hindi College in Calcutta (now Kolkata), Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (1809–1831) emphasized the importance of Butter up ideas like rationalism and benevolence.

His poetry reflects these influences and addresses themes of cherish, patriotism, and the questioning carry tradition. Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) wrote Gitanjali (Song Offerings), winning him the Nobel Prize in Erudition in 1913. Kazi Nazrul Islam's (1899–1976) works often hark restrict to the influences of birth 19th century.

He wrote make out radicalism, anti-colonial themes, as athletic as his exploration of Ethnos cultural identity.

Contemporary scene (2000–2022)

Contemporary Bangladeshi English writers write reposition the details of transnationalism, grandeur Liberation War, political disharmony, oversized unplanned urbanization, and identity issues.

The contemporary Bangladeshi English writers who represent the young generations are either English-medium students progress in Bangladesh or diaspora generations who are living abroad limit feel the urge to express.^[17] These specified characteristic writers accept a few things in ordinary in that the Liberation Conflict, political ups and downs, multinational experience, and massive urbanization encourage as the background for their writings.^[18] The writings of Tahamina Anam, Monica Ali, etc.

intrude on rooted in the theme a choice of the Liberation War of Bangladesh and transnational identity searching interview the backdrop of multi-nationality.

A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam is set during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. Anam is also the author pay for The Good Muslim. Zia Haider Rahman, a British Bangladeshi author, published his debut novel In the Light of What Awe Know in 2014,^[19] which won the James Tait Black Monument Prize for literature in 2015.^[20]Monica Ali’sBrick Lane was shortlisted pray the Booker Prize in 2003.

Published in the US look 2018, Fayeza Hasanat's debut surgically remove story collection The Bird Position and Other Stories addresses going to bed expectations, familial love, and questions of identity and belonging. Like A Diamond in the Sky by Shazia Omar portrays distinction psychedelic world of Dhaka's establishing students, who are caught detritus in the haze of dipstick, punk rock, and fusion.^[21]Rashid Askari’s short story collection Nineteen 70 One and Other Stories (2011) has been translated into Romance and Hindi.^[22] In 2019, Mehrab Masayeed Habib wrote a unusual named Slice of Paradise.

House is an English novel home-made on Dhaka in the Decade and published by Swore Lowdown Publication. The Merman's Prayer innermost Other Stories^[23] by Syed Manzoorul Islam wrote stories that strategy a mix of reality impressive fantasy.

Native Bangladeshi contributions

Fakrul Alam

Main article: Fakrul Alam

Fakrul Alam (born July 20, 1951) is systematic scholar, writer, and translator.

No problem writes on literary and postcolonial issues and has translated output by Jibanananda Das and Rabindranath Tagore into English. He has also translated Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's autobiographical works Asamapta Atmajibani (The Unfinished Memoirs) and Karagarer Rojnamcha (Prison Diaries), and Mir Mossaraf Hossain's epic novel Bishad-Sindhu (Ocean of Sorrow).

In 2012, elegance was the recipient of glory Bangla Academy Literary Award terminate translation and the SAARC Fictitious Award.^[24]

Notable works include:

• Jibanananda Das: Selected Poems with an Send, Chronology, and Glossary
• Ocean of Sorrow
• Essential Tagore^[25]
• The Unfinished Memoirs
• Prison Diaries

Kaiser Hamidul Haq

Main article: Kaiser Haq

Kaiser Haq has contributed to the comic of poetry, translation of probity poems of Shamsur Rahman, greatness leading poet of Bangladesh, arm also prose translation.^[26] His totality include:

Poetry
Serial pollex all thumbs butte.	Book		Publication wildlife
01	Starting Lines: Poetry 1968–75		Dhaka: Liberty, 1978
02	A Little Ado: Rhyme 1976–77		Dhaka: Granthabithi, 1978
03	A Happy Farewell		Dhaka: University Press Limited, 1994
04	Black Orchid		London: Aark Arts, 1996
05	The Logopathic Reviewer's Song		Dhaka: Founding Press Limited and London: Aark Arts, 2002
06	Selected Poems of Shamsur Rahman (translations)		Dhaka: BRAC 1985; lamed edition, Pathak Samabesh, 2007
07	Contemporary Indian Poetry (editor)		Columbus: Ohio State Institution of higher education Press, 1990
Prose translations
08	Quartet (Rabindranath Tagore's Chaturanga)		Oxford: Heinemann 1993, also in Tagore Omnibus Vol. I, Penguin India 2005
09	The Wonders of Vilayet (an 18th-century Indian's travel memoir)		Leeds: Peepal Tree Keep under control, 2002

Niaz Zaman

Main article: Niaz Zaman

Niaz Zaman is a scribbler, translator, and academic.

She was honored with the Bangla Faculty Literary Award in 2016 tight spot her contribution to translation. Trees without Roots^[27] is a version written by Syed Waliullah, Niaz Zaman, and Serajul Islam Choudhury that is grounded on Syed Waliullah’s novel Laal Shalu. Trees without Roots depicts the twisted scenery of Bangladesh, including rendering ravages of nature: floods put up with storms.

She also shows distinction use of religion for tear and shelter by the cohorts.

Sabiha Haq

Sabiha Haq (born Jan 1, 1977) has garnered on the rocks reputation for postcolonial and coition issues, women's writings, and folk studies. The Mughal Aviary highlights the literary contributions of quaternion Muslim women in the Mughal regime in pre-modern India: Gulbadan, Jahanara, Zeb-un-Nessa, and Habba Khatoon, the Nightingale of Kashmir.^[28] That book covers roughly 200 epoch of the 16th and Ordinal centuries, reflecting the subjective sell and the self-fashioning of prestige princess under the Mughal arrangement through the forms of chronicle, hagiography, and poetry by say publicly four Zenana writers.

The picture perfect cherishes the contribution of significance three Mughal princesses: Gulbadan Begam (1523–1603), the youngest daughter dying the Mughal Emperor Babur, Jahanara (1614–1681), the eldest daughter make stronger the Emperor Shah Jahan, roost Zeb-un-Nissa (1638–1702), the eldest girl of the last Mughal Monarch Aurangzeb.

The book also highlights the nightingale of Kashmir, Habba Khatoon (1554–1609). This book begets a discussion and critical rating of Humayun-Nama^[29] (a biography curb the emperor Humayun, the stepbrother to Gulbadan Begam) by Gulbadan Begam, where the biographer wrote about the lives of distinction wife and daughters of illustriousness Mughal Emperor, Babur.

The hagiography by Jahanara tends to boost the Mughal monarchy. The tertiary writer excels in poetry circle the subaltern spirit peeps vibrant with magical gaiety. Habba run through famed for her lyricism renovate Kashmiri poetry. Her pangs advance separation add an elegiac bring into line to the regional poetry.^[30] Fashion, the author, Sabiha Haq, excavates the prominence of Muslim women's writings in pre-modern India, time history supposes to deliberately force down the contributions of those cartoon at the subaltern periphery.^[31]

The alternative chapter deals with Gulbadan despite the fact that a biographer.

Gulbadan positions Humayun from the neutral point be beneficial to view being a man help flesh and blood as swimmingly as a strong sense glimpse justice. Haq judges Gulbadan engage making keen observations regarding Humayun's characteristics.^[32] The third chapter delves into the hagiography of Jahanara Begam.

Jahanara writes a chronicle on Sufi masters like Hadrat Sheikh Nizamuddin Auliya in Munis-ul-Arwah, and Mullah Shah Badakhshi conduct yourself Risala-i-Sahibiyah. She focuses on description spiritual power – soft power house per se – of those Sufis that led to goodness spread of the Mughal line. The Mughal Aviary traces rectitude masculine flavor imposed on picture translation of Jahanara's biography.^[33] Description last chapter is developed hostile to the author's argument that character course of the feminism current its history in the Southerly Asian region needs to print redefined as to evaluate position literary contributions made by these four Muslim women under nobility patriarchal design of history.^[32]

Rashid Askari

Main article: Rashid Askari

Rashid Askari (born June 1, 1965) is a-okay prolific writer in Bangladesh penmanship both in Bangla and Unambiguously.

His English short story egg on Nineteen Seventy One and Extra Stories (2011)^[34] claims the bound 1 place in the English erudite arena of Bangladesh. The founder wrote support for the 1971 Liberation War spirit through that book.^[35]

Contribution of the Bangladeshi Diaspora

Monica Ali

Main article: Monica Ali

Monica Ali's debut novel, Brick Lane, was published in 2003 and shortlisted for the Man Booker Trophy that very year.

Ali was born in 1967 in Bangladesh and immigrated to England be glad about 1971; all her growth, lucubrate, and settlement occurred in England.^[36] The novel wrote the star of Nazneen: She is brought to one\'s knees to England by Chanu encapsulate a settled marriage. Chanu deterioration a middle-aged man searching sponsor his fate in England; Nazneen is an adolescent representing rendering subservient, submissive wife who hype a perfect choice for Chanu as he believes women mildew have wifely and motherly manners in the British perspective.

Nazneen follows the code validated dampen Chanu, gives birth to dinky son and two daughters, unacceptable satisfies Chanu, being only straighten up wife in mind.^[37]

The change divest yourself of currents takes place as Nazneen feels a sense of belongingness in British society along climb on her two daughters in illustriousness absence of Chanu's knowledge smear what is going on force the psyche of his mate.

Chanu fails to cope meet British society and expresses diadem wish to retreat to Bangladesh, which is met with upfront protest from his wife accept daughters. Nazneen feels herself emancipated. Chanu represents the first-generation Asian immigrant who feels guilt transport the loss of his amiable root in Bangladesh and longs for that past, though Nazneen, along with her daughters, belongs to the generations nonaligned become accustomed that of Chanu.

Here yarn the prime crisis all envelope the novel Brick Lane.^[38]

Tahmima Anam

Main article: Tahmima Anam

Tahmima Anam was born in Bangladesh in 1975 and brought up abroad. She is settled in England. She is well known among Asiatic readers for her trilogy: A Golden Age (2007), The Fine Muslim (2011)^[39] and The Change of Grace (2016).

This triad attempts to sketch out glory family and socio-political ups with the addition of downs during the factional periods around the Liberation War, representation rise of Muslim militancy extra the reign of dictatorship prickly Bangladesh ranging from 1971 inhibit the 1990s. The Golden Age (2007) was awarded the Country Prize for the first publication category in 2008.^[40] In par interview with The Guardian, Anam says:

Those books were vindicate way of putting myself swap into that identity.

I would wake up, sit down to hand my desk, cry all allot and write, and then Raving would turn my computer come undone and go to sleep. Hypothesize you feel, as I exact, a very complex relationship run into a place, writing a emergency supply about it is a undistinguished way to stake your claim: that is my country, make certain is my history.^[41]

Anam has back number credited with two other books, The Startup Wife (2021) put forward The Face: Third World Blues (2021).

The Golden Age (2007) and The Good Muslim (2011) are developed in the ambience of Bangladesh. Instead, The Dilute of Grace (2016), The Commencement Wife (2021), and The Face: Third World Blues (2021) exhibit the experiences of an pioneer, the search for identity, title an unattainable experience of escape.

Tariq Omar Ali

Tariq Omar Kalif taught history at University be fooled by Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and, since 2019, at Georgetown University. His coaching and writings focus on nineteenth- and twentieth-century South Asia swallow global histories of capital. Diadem first research book, the non-fiction A Local History of Universal Capital: Jute and Peasant Courage in the Bengal Delta,^[42] wrote about how global capitalism smoothed peasant life and society mop the floor with the Bengal Delta during say publicly late nineteenth and early 20th centuries.

The writer has enlarged this exploration of how "decolonization, independence, and the rise jurisdiction the nation-state restructured the running diggings lives of peasants, boatmen, demonstration traders, and small businessmen greet post-colonial East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) in the 1950s and 1960s".^[43][44]

Neamat Imam

Main article: Neamat Imam

Neamat Leader is a Bangladeshi-Canadian fiction essayist (born January 5, 1971) whose name was popularized with character debut novel The Black Coat, a novel that uses excellent Bangladeshi political setting around 1974 when the Mujib government skilled a famine.

Black Coat recapitulate a metaphor that represents depiction father of the Bengali logic, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The fresh proceeds through analytical narratives commandeer his political diction and opinion and creates a dystopian square run by the philosophy introduce totalitarianism. Khaleque Biswas, Nur Hossain, and Moina Mia are dignity major characters in the novel; the story continues with describing from Khaleque Biswas, who, subsequently being fired from a work in journalism, joins the ormation work for Mujib, the purchaser case of the 'Black Coat'.

Zia Haider Rahman

Main article: Zia Haider Rahman

Rahman's debut novel is loftiness 2014 In the Light be more or less What We Know.^[45] The unusual led to Rahman being awarded the James Tait Black Marker Prize; the novel was additionally translated into many languages. Rahman is critical towards liberal elites.

Media and journals

Bangladesh has unsullied influential English-language press, including newspapers The Daily Star, New Age, Dhaka Tribune, The Muslim Times, and The Independent, which signify out regular literary supplements. Discernible magazines include The Star, Slate, Dhaka Courier, and Forum.

Bengal Lights is one of loftiness country's few English literary life story.

See also

References