Bangladesh : An Intercultural Memoir

Dr. Anwar Dil presents in this book excellent pen pictures of six individuals belonging to Bangladesh (former East Pakistan) with whom he had closely interacted since the late 1950s. These essays are based on his meetings and discussions over years of his friendship with them, supplemented by close examination of their work and ideal aspirations. His four books in the series, of which this is the second, cover twenty-four men and women of Bangladesh representing from his personal perspective a truly great intercultural tradition that makes our young nation-state an exemplary model for the One World ideals upheld by UNESCO and other international organizations. …  As he writes in his Prologue to the first volume in this Series he developed special love for Bengal that inspired him to read about ancient Bengali culture and civilization in Eastern Bengal (present-day Bangladesh) that was a uniquely rich intercultural area. …  In January 1960 he met Afia, a Bengali young woman, intellectually alert and emotionally sensitive, who like Anwar was drawn to the subject of intercultural understanding in more senses than one. They got married in March 1961. Since then they have been continuing their life partnership in a very real sense of the term. …  Since 1971 their most notable gift to us has been a series of books as “Contributions to Bangladesh Studies”. Their jointly authored 744-page book Bengali Language Movement to Bangladesh (2000) has been hailed as the most objective scholarly work on the creation of Bangladesh as a nation-state. Its Bangladesh Edition is being reprinted with corrections of spelling misprints as Bengali Language Movement and Creation of Bangladesh in 2011. I congratulate Professor Anwar Dil for giving us in Bangladesh an insightful and highly inspiring series of four books on men and women whom he chose as exemplars of our continuing intercultural tradition. We hope he will give us many more books on intercultural Bangladesh. - National Professor Kabir Chowdhury Former Director General, Bangla Academy, Dhaka