50 women poets represent Bangladesh internationally

On February 21, 2022, the poetry anthology Arise out of the Lock was published by London and Singapore-based publishers, Balestier Press, to commemorate the International Mother Language Day and 50 years of Bangladesh's independence. The translated work of 50 "representative" women poets of Bangladesh has been curated for this book by writer, translator and critic Alam Khorshed, with the translation done by Nabina Das, a Bangla-speaking Indian poet, professor and translator based in Hyderabad. Das has also written for Bangladeshi platforms including Dhaka Tribune and Six Seasons Review.

The anthology includes poetry by literary icons such as Sufia Kamal, Anwara Syed Huq, Farida Majid, and more, alongside more contemporary poets and writers including Jahanara Parveen, Jharna Rahman, Novera Hossain, Leesa Gazi, and others.

"Certain themes and imagery traditionally coded feminine, such as flowers and fabric, recur with surprising and thought-provoking variations in their treatment", reads a blurb for the anthology written by Deborah Smith, the critically acclaimed translator of Han Kang's 2016 International Booker Prize-winning novel, The Vegetarian. "[F]requent references to characters from Islamic and Hindu mythology point to the lived experience of a shared cultural inheritance", Smith writes of Arise out of the Lock.

The book contains a foreword by writer and activist Sadaf Saaz, co-founder of the Dhaka Lit Fest, and it is available to order on Amazon.