Bangladesh at the South Asian Literary Conference, October 2021

The SAARC Literary Festival dates back to 1987, a year after the formation of SAARC. Ajeet Caur, a writer and recipient of the Padma Shri Award, first organized the festival on behalf of the Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature (FOSWAL). In her attempt to bring the writers of the SAARC countries, she has been a pivotal figure through the years to make the SAARC cultural bonding strong as ever. A 4-day long programme titled, "South Asian Online Literary Conference" took place this year in March where poets and writers from all SAARC countries read from their works and discussed on relevant topics. Then again, October 6-9, 2021, a second Literary Conference was held in collaboration with the Sahitya Akademi.

The programme spanned through 4 days. The inaugural session was held on the first day and welcome address made by K. Sreenivasarao, the Secretary of Sahitya Akademi. Ajeet Cour was kind enough to chair and attend different sessions of the program through all four days. All the sessions of the conference went live on youtube.

This October, like previous years, many writers and academics from Bangladesh participated in the programme. A highlight of the programme was a panel on the Unfinished Memoir by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. It was the second session of the very first day. The panelists of this session were Mofidul Hoque, Prof. Fakrul Alam and Kamal Chowdhury. Their discussion focused on the difficulties involving the Memoir that got lost and then resurfaced and finally were published and translated as well.

Among other sessions of interest and significance for Bangladeshi audience was one on fiction where Selina Hossain and Jharna Rahman read out from their selected fiction pieces.

Kaiser Haq chaired a poetry session and read out from his own work.

Syed Manzoorul Islam in an interview with Fayeza Hasanat spoke of his art of story-writing. He emphasized the oral tradition and magic realism that upholds local traditions like bauliana and Sufiism. When asked about the Liberation War of 1971 as 2021 celebrates the golden jubilee of the birth of Bangladesh, he spoke of the complications involving the War, the difficulties and the good things he experienced. He emphasized the positive aspects of life and why it is important to remember 1971 and why stories are important. Professor Islam aslo praised the FOSWAL efforts of connecting the SAARC countries.

 Another important segment was Niaz Zaman's interview with Jackie Kabir. She spoke of her interest in translation with a special focus on Kazi Nazrul Islam. She also spoke of other translators who have been working and publishing through the last decades. She also addressed an important question of copyright problems with translations.

Among the other presenters from Bangladesh, there were Faruq Sumon, poet Ashraf Jewel, Bimal Guha, Sanjeeda Hossain, Rifat Munim and Sohana Manzoor.

The four-day program was amazing, especially as it was held online and yet was able to bring together writers from across the SAARC countries.