Among the recipients are late novelist Shahidul Zahir (Md Shahidul Haque) and poet Helal Hafeez, who will be honoured posthumously for their contributions to Language and Literature. Renowned photographer and founder of Drik Gallery and Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, Shahidul Alam, will receive the award for his work in Culture and Education. Filmmaker Azizur Rahman, famed for his work on “Chhutir Ghonta”, will be conferred the award posthumously for his contributions to Arts (Cinema), while Ustad Nirad Baran Barua and Ferdous Ara will be honored for Music. Nasir Ali Mamun will be recognized for Arts (Photography), and Rokeya Sultana will receive the award for Arts (Fine Arts).

Directed by emerging filmmaker Zayed Siddiqui, the festival took place from August 16 to 18 at the historic Gaiety Theatre Cultural Complex in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India, where Siddiqui personally received the award on its concluding day.

Over the last two semesters, my course on South Asian writing at both the undergraduate and graduate level begins with Shahidul Zahir’s Jibon O Rajnoitik Bastobata (Life and Political Reality, translated by V Ramaswamy and Shahroza Nahreen).

Saleha Chowdhury has been nominated in the Ajibon Shommanona (Lifetime Award 2022) category. Translators Venkateswar Ramaswamy and Shahroza Nahrin were jointly nominated in the Borshoshera Onudito Boi 2022 (Best Translated Book of the Year 2022) category.

Zahir uses crows as a symbol of magic realism, as found in local folklore, where animals serve as omens of luck both good and bad. The crows seem to bring bad luck to the couple, and wherever they go, the birds follow.

The personal space is the same as the political sphere, the individual on the same strand as the collective.