RESEARCH ON HUMAYUN’S NOVELS
Bangla Academy fails to keep pledge
Observing Humayun Ahmed’s first death anniversary
Today is the first anniversary of the death of Humayun Ahmed, the country’s most influential writer after the war of independence. He has written more than 200 fictions and non-fictions. His writing helped Bangladeshi readers to shift their focus off contemporary Indian writers. Humayun Ahmed was also a trendsetter playwright. Moreover, he directed hundreds of teleplays and eight films. He won awards such as Ekushey Padak, Bangla Academy Award and the National Film Awards for his two films.
Bangla Academy has failed to keep the pledge that it made after the death of the country’s iconic writer Humayun Ahmed on June 19 last year.
The government organisation, responsible for initiating research works and promoting Bangla language and literature, announced its support for 10 research works on Humayun Ahmed’s books.
The academy also announced to publish a book including all the research articles by last December.
Ahmed’s fans and peers, who highly welcomed the noble initiative, hold the academy responsible for the failure.
They also express their frustrations as the academy has not yet done anything meaningful for Humayun Ahmed, the most popular writer after the independence of the country, who has made remarkable contribution to popularise the Aamar Ekushey Granthamela.
‘We expected that the academy would do something in the last Ekushey book fair. It could be justified if the academy had launched the research book in the fair as it had promised after the death of the writer,’ Sabri Obaidul Akbar, a diehard fan of Humayun Ahmed’s novel told New Age.
‘Pledges must be fulfilled. It’s the responsibility of the academy to honour the words it made. They should have done something for Humayun, who has tremendous contribution for popularising the book fair amongst the masses,’ writer-actor Khairul Alam Shobuj told New Age.
‘Bangla Academy should act as a patron to the talented writers and also should take projects of translations of the Bangla classics as per its mandate,’ he added.
New Age investigation found that even in the slumped Amar Ekushey Granthamela in 2013, the sales of Ahmed’s books were incomparable to that of other writers.
‘For the political turmoil, this year’s book fair was unsuccessful and almost all the participating publishers suffered great loss. But even in this despondent situation, sales of Humayun Ahmed’s books remained very high, and the publishers were able to compensate their loss through selling books authored by him,’ Abdullah Naser, executive editor of Anyadin that has published Humayun Ahmed’s 50 percent of total 200 books, told New Age.
‘Ahmed’s Deyal was hot cake. People also looked for old fictions and non fictions by Ahmed,’ Naser added.
Farid Ahmed, the publisher of Samoy Prokashoni, which published 19 books of the writer, said, ‘All the books were successful financially. We also publish books of other writers but nothing is comparable to the popularity of Humayun Ahmed’s books.’
President of Bangladesh Book Publishers Association Alamgir Sikder Loto told New Age that Humayun Ahmed’s fame as a writer increased posthumously. ‘People are now more passionate about the writer after his demise and buying more of his books,’ Loto said.
Bangla Academy director general Shamsuzzaman Khan also admits that Humayun Ahmed’s writings had a huge demand in the last Amar Ekushey Grantha, though the overall sale of the fair was poor.
‘The project we initiated on the writer after his death is under process. We will do it eventually,’ Khan said.
The silver lining is that the private sectors especially the publishers are trying their best to promote the works of the iconic writer. Anyadin has already started translating Humayun Ahmed’s book Moddhanho into English.
‘We began the project when the writer was alive, but after his demise, we are now more determined to complete the book successfully, and to launch it in the upcoming Ekushey Granthamela,’ Abdullah Naser of Anyadin said.
-With New Age input
