Rusafa Binte Rahat, Vienna, Austria: Bangladesh is renowned for literary figures such as Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam, and Humayun Ahmed, but with the well-deserved acknowledgement of these men, women writers become overshadowed. They have a right to their own places for the strides they made for Bangladesh as a whole, too.
1. Shaheen Akhtar’s Talaash is a groundbreaking novel highlighting the aftermath of the Liberation War which embeds lasting effects on the psyche of Birangana women, where Bangladesh had emphasised their “contributions” to the “glory” of victory while simultaneously titling them with a label that would ensure ostracization from their communities due to the stigma of a “polluted woman.” – Talaash had won the Prothom Alo Best Book of the Year Award in 2004, The Asian Literary Award in as, and has been translated into English by Ella Dutta as well as Korean by Seung Hee Jeon. In an interview for Eclectica Magazine (2007), Akhtar stated: “The War went on only for nine months, it was the responsibility of the people of that liberated nation that the period of torture was lengthened beyond that for these women. This is presented to the reader in my novel Talaash, by narrating the story of 30 years of that post-War abuse. Maybe because there was a subconscious guilt about it, readers didn’t reject it, they’ve tried to assimilate it to their own emotions. Such an indication is quite clear in the testimonials of the jury board, reviews of Talaash or reader feedback that I’ve received on a personal level. Talaash is perhaps a successful book in that it awakened sleeping consciences.”
2. “Why should a woman be confined to home and denied her rightful place in society?” once said Kamini Roy, a trailblazer in Bengali poetry and one of the first feminists during the reign of British rule. Her ancestral home resides in the Jhalokati District of Bangladesh. During her lifetime, she had been a member of the Female Labour Investigation Commission, the women’s suffrage movement, and a leader of Bangiya Nari Samaj Her accolades included the Jagattarini medal by Calcutta University, awarded to her in 1929, and recently, an honorary Google Doodle for her 155th birthday.
Her poetry, inspired by her scholarly aptitude in Sanskrit and Rabindranath Tagore himself, came from a place of clarity and conciseness, but held its unique voice:
“As Women we may mother be
Also wives we may,
But as women we claim our place
As women to have our say,”
Thakurmar Chithi (1924)
3. Adiba Jaigirdar, formerly a writer for Book Riot and currently an English as a Second Language teacher to new immigrants in Ireland, had her book The Henna Wars featured in Time magazine’s 100 Best YA Books of All Time, with names such as Little Women, Lord of the Flies and Persepolis along with other prominent outlets like Teen Vogue, American Library Association, The Irish Times, Autostraddle and NPR. When asked about her start in the venture of novel writing, she reiterated the importance of identity in representational literary media:
“My very existence is political, so the things that I write will also be seen as inherently political.” (The Tempest, 2020)
“I was studying in an academic environment where people of colour were writing about their experiences. It helped me realise the world around us and what it means to exist as a woman of colour.” (Brown Girl Magazine, 2020)
Lana Barnes from Shelf Awareness expressed Jaigirdar’s character’s obstacles in the book as “the dichotomy of wanting to break from the constraints of tradition while still maintaining strong ties to culture and beliefs.”
4. “We [women] constitute one half of the society, and if we are left behind, how can the society progress?” – Begum Rokeya is perhaps the most famous name in this list for her outstanding work and stance on women’s equality at a time when it was declared to be unimaginable to provide a philosophical safety net for Muslim girls at the time. She founded the Anjuman-e-Khawateen-e-Islam (Muslim Women’s Society) in 1916, Sakhawat Memorial Girls’ School (the first school for Muslim women in her region) in 1909, ran a slum literary programme, advocated for raising the literacy rates, whether it be in the village or the city, and in 1905, depicted a utopian society by publishing Sultanar Swapna, where the traditional roles of men and women were reversed to provide an insight into the struggles many females faced at the time. Rokeya was featured in BBC’s poll of the Greatest Bengali of all time, and Rokeya Day is celebrated every year to commemorate her icon status.
“Why do you allow yourselves to be shut up?’
‘Because it cannot be helped as they are stronger than women.’
‘A lion is stronger than a man, but it does not enable him to dominate the human race. You have neglected the duty you owe to yourselves and you have lost your natural rights by shutting your eyes to your own interests.”
― Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, Sultana’s Dream
5. One does not typically think of the historical fantasy genre when it comes to Bangladeshi authors, however Shazia Omar broke barriers with her book Dark Diamond where the description reads: The hero of Dark Diamond is Lord Shayista Khan, the Mughal Viceroy of Bengal, who in 1685, during Aurangzeb’s rule, was the most powerful man on Earth. Under Lord Khan’s governance, Bengal became the epicentre of commerce and culture – a veritable treasure chest with greedy Maratha warriors, Arakan rajas, Hindu zamindars, fanatic Mullahs, a diabolical Pir with occult powers and the East India Company. Not only does Lord Khan have to keep them at bay but also he must neutralise the curse of the Kalinoor, the dark diamond sister of the famous Kohinoor that now adorns the British Crown.
“I wanted to write a book that recollects Bengal at its finest and portrays a hero whom we can adore, one who fought for the freedom of thought and expression.”- Omar provides the reader with her demonstration of shattering the glass ceiling with a book which is enjoyable for both the younger and older demographics.
Rusafa Binte Rahat, Author and Columnist/EBTimes/MR
