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Humayun Azad | |
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| Native name | হুমায়ুন আজাদ |
| Born | Humayun Kabir (1947-04-28)28 April 1947 Bikrampur,Bengal,British India (nowMunshiganj District,Bangladesh) |
| Died | 12 August 2004(2004-08-12) (aged 57) Munich,Bavaria,Germany |
| Resting place | Munshiganj District |
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| Language | Bengali, English |
| Nationality | Bangladeshi |
| Education | B.A., M.A. (Bengali literature) PhD (linguistics) |
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Humayun Azad (28 April 1947 – 12 August 2004) was a Bangladeshi poet, novelist, short-story writer, critic, linguist, columnist and professor ofDhaka University. He wrote more than 70 titles.[1] He was awarded theBangla Academy Literary Award in 1986 for his contributions to Bengali linguistics.[2] In 2012, thegovernment of Bangladesh honored him withEkushey Padak posthumously for his contributions toBengali literature.[3][4][5]
Azad was born as Humayun Kabir on 28 April 1947 in Rarhikhal village inBikrampur which village is now under theSreenagar sub-district ofMunshiganj district.[6] Notable scientistJagadish Chandra Bose was born in the same village.[7] He passed the secondary examination from Sir Jagadish Chandra Basu Institute in 1962 and higher secondary examination fromDhaka College in 1964. He earned BA and MA degrees inBengali language and literature from theUniversity of Dhaka in 1967 and 1968 respectively. He obtained his PhD inlinguistics submitting his thesis titled "Pronominalisation in Bangla" from theUniversity of Edinburgh in 1976.[6][7][8] Azad changed his surname from Kabir to Azad on 28 September 1988 by the magistrate ofNarayanganj District.[6]
Azad started his career in 1969 by joining theChittagong College.[6] He joined theUniversity of Chittagong as a lecturer on 11 February 1970 andJahangirnagar University in December.[9] He was appointed as an associate professor of Bengali at the University of Dhaka on 1 November 1978 and got promoted to the post of professor in 1986.[6]
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Azad's first collection of poems, written between 1968 and 1972, was published asAlaukik Istimar (lit. 'Unearthly steamer') in 1973,[10] in which year he went toScotland for studyingPh.D inlinguistics fromUniversity of Edinburgh. He wrote a short-story in 1979 calledOnoboroto Tusharpat (lit. 'Heavy snowing') which was inspired from his newly-wed life with his Dhaka University class-mate Latifa Kohinoor. In Britain one day, Azad was driving a car with his wife during heavy snowfall which became the main plot of the short story;[11] so many years later Azad included this short-story in his 1996 bookJadukorer Mrityu (lit. 'Death of the magician') which book is the collection of his own-written five short-stories.
In 1992, Azad published the first comprehensive feminist book in Bengali titledNaree (English:Woman).Naree received both positive and negative reviews as a treatise, it was considered the first full-fledged feminist book after the independence of Bangladesh.[12][13] In this work Azad mentioned the pro-women contributions of theBritish Raj's two famous Bengali socio-political reformers:Raja Rammohan Roy andIshwar Chandra Vidyasagar, he criticizedRabindranath Tagore, a famous Bengali poet and Nobel laureate, andBankim Chandra Chatterjee, a famous Bengali novelist of the 19th century. The work, critical of the patriarchal and male-chauvinistic attitude of society towards women, attracted negative reactions from many Bangladeshi readers. The government of Bangladesh banned the book in 1995. The ban was eventually lifted in 2000, following a legal battle that Azad won in theHigh Court of the country.[13]
In the year of 1994 he published his first novel which was titled asChhappanno Hajar Borgomail (lit. 'Fifty-six thousand square-miles, the area of Bangladesh'); the novel was about military rule in Bangladesh in 1980s decade. He got special recognition for his second novelSab Kichu Bhene Pare (1995) which was based oninterpersonal relationship of Bangladeshi society. He wroteEkti Khuner Svapna (lit. 'Dreaming of a murder'), anunrequited love-based novel where the main male protagonist lives inSalimullah Muslim Hall ofDhaka University where Azad lived during his student life, it was Azad's last novel published in 2004 in which year he died. Other important novels areKobi Othoba Dondito Aupurush (lit. 'The poet or the condemned eunuch') andNijer Shonge Nijer Jiboner Modhu (lit. 'The honey of one's life with himself'), the first was based on a fictitious late 20th century Bangladeshi male poet's life who is castrated after involving inlive-in relationship with a much younger woman and the latter was inspired by Humayun Azad's own rural life when he was a teen-aged boy. Another noted novel written by Azad wasFali Fali Kore Kata Chand (lit. 'The split moon'), where the main female protagonist character Shirin is an educated young woman with self-boastfulness, she engages in adultery, leaves her husband and becomes misandrist.[citation needed]
Azad also wrote teen-age literature, among them, the discourse-bookLaal Neel Deepabali is noted, this book was written for teen-aged boys and girls as Azad's aim was to teach Bangladeshi adolescent boys and girls about thehistory of Bengali literature in short.[citation needed]
On 27 February 2004, near the campus of the University of Dhaka during the annualBangla Academy book fair, two assailants, armed with chopper machetes, hacked Azad several times on the jaw, lower part of the neck and hands.[7] Azad was taken to the nearbyDhaka Medical College and Hospital. By the order of the thenPrime Minister of BangladeshKhaleda Zia, Azad was immediately sent to theCombined Military Hospital (CMH), Dhaka for better treatment and later toBumrungrad International Hospital in Thailand where he recovered.[7][14]
Azad had been fearing for his life ever since excerpts of his novel,Pak Sar Jamin Sad Bad (lit. 'Pakistan's national anthem;Be Blessed the Sacred Land') were first published inThe Daily Ittefaq Newspaper's Eid supplement in 2003.[7] In that novel, he indecorously criticised the political ideologies of the Islamic extremists of Bangladesh. After that book had been published, he started receiving various threats from the Islamist fundamentalists.[15]
A week prior to Azad's assault,Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, one of themembers of parliament of Bangladesh said in the parliament, that Azad's political satirePak Sar Jamin Sad Bad must be banned; he also wanted infliction of theblasphemy law of Bangladesh for this kind of book.[7] In 2006, one of the leaders of the fundamentalist organizationJama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) admitted to theRAB interrogators that his operatives carried out the attack on writer Azad, as well as two other murders, bomb blasts, and2002 attacks on cinemas.[16]
On 12 August 2004, Azad was found dead in his apartment inMunich, Germany,[1] where he had arrived a week earlier to conduct research on the nineteenth century German romantic poetHeinrich Heine,[17] several months after the Islamists' machete attack on him at a book fair, which had left him grievously injured.[18] His family demanded an investigation, alleging that the extremists who had attempted the earlier assassination had a role in this death.[19][20] While alive, Azad had expressed his wish to donate his body to medical college after his death.[21] Instead he was buried in Rarhikhal, his village home in Bangladesh, as doctors declined to take his body for medical research, as several days had passed for his body to reach Bangladesh from Germany.[22] The first death anniversary of Azad was observed with respect in Rarhikhal village on Friday, the 12 August 2005.[23]
Azad met his future wife Latifa Kohinoor in 1968 during his M.A. studies at the University of Dhaka. They married on 12 October 1975.[24][7] Together they had two daughters, Smita and Mauli, and one son, Anannya.[25] Kohinoor died from cancer on 5 September 2024 in Dhaka.[26]
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