Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Why do you recommend A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam?
While Days of 1971 is the recollections of a mother, this is a different generation writing about the Liberation War. Tahmima based her book on the memories of her grandparents. She also paints a bigger picture of 1947 and how we were separated again and again.
The main character is a Pakistani woman living in Bangladesh, and she sided with Bangladesh during the war. This was a very emotional decision. She is an amazing character but you would find many others like her in real life – there were many cases of Pakistanis siding with Bangladesh. And there were many families with a Pakistani father and a Bengali mother, or vice-versa. It was a very complicated and intertwined thing and Tahmima portrayed these feelings masterfully. It is a story of divided hearts. When this book was published it sent ripples throughout Bangladesh. It is now very popular across the globe.
Tahmima Anam is the daughter of the editor of The Daily Star, Mahfuz Anam. Do you know her?
I’ve met her three or four times. Her father is quite powerful in Bangladesh but she has built a brilliant career of her own in London.
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Syed Ashfaqul Haque is Chief News Editor at The Daily Star, the largest circulating English language daily newspaper in Bangladesh. Ashfaqul began his career as an apprentice subeditor at The Daily Star nearly 20 years ago, when the newspaper was a year old. In 2009 his investigative report on corruption in imports won the Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) Investigative Journalism Award, the Unesco-Bangladesh Journalism Award and the Dhaka Reporters Unity Award for best economic investigative report. Ashfaqul talks to The Browser about his nation’s struggle for independence, the repression of journalists and his five favourite books about Bangladesh.
