The Bangla Academy is the official regulatory body of the Bengali language in Bangladesh. It is an autonomous institution funded by the Government of Bangladesh that fosters the Bengali language, literature and culture, works to develop and implement national language policy and conducts original research in Bengali. Established in 1955, it is located in the Burdwan House in Shahbagh, Dhaka, within the grounds of the University of Dhaka and Suhrawardy Udyan. The Bangla Academy hosts the annual Ekushey Book Fair.
Munier Choudhury was a Bangladeshi educationist, playwright, literary critic and political dissident. He was a victim of the mass killing of Bangladeshi intellectuals in 1971. He was awarded Independence Day Award in 1980, by the then president Ziaur Rahman's government, posthumously.
Farida Akhtar Poppy, known by her stage name Babita, is a Bangladeshi film actress. She is best known for her performance in Satyajit Ray's Distant Thunder, a novel adaptation about the Bengal famine of 1943, which won the Golden Bear prize at the 23rd Berlin International Film Festival in 1973. She was active in the 1970s through 1990s as an actress in Bangladeshi films. She acted in 275 films.
Sumita Devi was a Bangladeshi actress. In 45 years of her career, she acted in around 200 films and 150 radio and television dramas. She was an artist at the Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra in 1971.
Bengali literature denotes the body of writings in the Bengali language and which covers Old Bengali, Middle- Bengali and Modern Bengali with the changes through the passage of time and dynastic patronization or non-patronization. Bengali has developed over the course of roughly 1,300 years. If the emergence of the Bengali literature supposes to date back to roughly 650 AD, the development of Bengali literature claims to be 1600 years old. The earliest extant work in Bengali literature is the Charyapada, a collection of Buddhist mystic songs in Old Bengali dating back to the 10th and 11th centuries. The timeline of Bengali literature is divided into three periods: ancient (650–1200), medieval (1200–1800) and modern. Medieval Bengali literature consists of various poetic genres, including Hindu religious scriptures, Islamic epics, Vaishnava texts, translations of Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit texts, and secular texts by Muslim poets. Novels were introduced in the mid-19th century. Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore is the best known figure of Bengali literature to the world. Kazi Nazrul Islam, notable for his activism and anti-British literature, was described as the Rebel Poet and is now recognised as the National poet of Bangladesh.
Razia Khan Amin was a Bangladeshi writer, poet and educationist. She was also a journalist, theatre actor and columnist for newspapers. She was awarded Ekushey Padak in 1997 for her contribution to education by the Government of Bangladesh.
Suborna Mustafa is a Bangladeshi television, film and stage actress. She is a former Jatiya Sangsad member representing the Reserved Women's Seat-4 from 2019 to 2024. She is a member of Bangladesh Awami League party.
Mobarak Hossain Khan was a Bangladeshi musicologist, musician, and writer. He played the surbahar, a bass version of the sitar.
Sara Zaker is a Bangladeshi theatre and television actor, director, business entrepreneur and social activist. She was awarded Ekushey Padak by the Government of Bangladesh in 2017.
Shamim Azad is a Bangladeshi-born British bilingual poet, storyteller and writer. She won 2023 Bangla Academy Literary Award in the poetry category.
Rafiath Rashid Mithila is a Bangladeshi actress, singer and development worker known professionally by the mononym Mithila. Besides her film work in both Bangladesh and Kolkata, India, she is the head of the Early Childhood Development programme in BRAC International.
Syed Manzoorul Islam is a Bangladeshi critic, writer and a former professor of Dhaka University. As a literary critic, he has written criticism on writers including Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Sudhindranath Dutta, Samar Sen, and Shamsur Rahman. He received a Bangla Academy Literary Award in 1996, and his 2005 short stories collection Prem o Prarthanar Galpo was Prothom Alo's book of the year. He became the president of PEN Bangladesh in January 2018.
Shahid Quadri was a Bangladeshi poet and writer. For his poetry, he was awarded Bangla Academy Literary Award in 1973 and Ekushey Padak in 2011. His notable poems include "Uttoradhikar", "Tomake Obhibadon Priyotoma", "Kothao Kono Krondon Nei" and "Amar Chumbongulo Poucchey Dao".
Nurjahan Murshid was a journalist and teacher, a Bangladesh cabinet minister, and social activist.
Tamalika Karmakar is a Bangladeshi actress and model. Her notable film roles were in Ei Ghar Ei Songshar (1996), Kittonkhola (2000) and Ghetuputra Komola (2012). Tamalika won Bangladesh National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Kittonkhola. In July 2017, she performed, with Aranyak Nattaydal theatre troupe, in Rarang, on their 180th rendition.
Attacks by fundamentalists in Bangladesh refers to a period of turbulence in Bangladesh between 2013 and 2016 where attacks on a number of secularist and atheist writers, bloggers, and publishers in Bangladesh; foreigners; homosexuals; and religious minorities such as Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and Ahmadis were seen as having attacked Islam and the Prophet Muhammad with many killed by Muslim extremists in retaliation. By 2 July 2016 a total of 48 people, including 20 foreign nationals, were killed in such attacks. These attacks were largely blamed on extremist groups such as Ansarullah Bangla Team and Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The Bangladeshi government was criticized for its response to the attacks, which included charging and jailing some of the secularist bloggers for allegedly defaming some religious groups; or hurting the religious sentiments of different religious groups; or urging the bloggers to flee overseas. This strategy was seen by some as pandering to hard line elements within Bangladesh's Muslim majority population. About 89% of the population in Bangladesh is Sunni Muslim. The government's eventual crackdown in June 2016 was also criticized for its heavy-handedness, as more than 11,000 people were arrested in a little more than a week.
Husna Banu Khanam was a Bangladeshi educationist, writer and Nazrul singer. She was a pioneer of Bengali Muslim women journalism. In 1999, she received the Ekushey Padak Award for her contribution in music, and in 2004, she received the Begum Rokeya Medal for her contribution to the socio-economic development of women by the Government of Bangladesh.
Somnur Monir Konal is a Bangladeshi singer and television host who is best known as a playback singer for Bangladeshi films. She debuted in the entertainment industry by winning the musical television reality show Channel i Shera Kontho in 2009. Since then she has recorded songs for dozens of films, hosted various television shows, and judged the 2019 edition of children's musical reality show Ganer Raja. As of 2022, she has sung for films with more than 300 songs.
PEN Bangladesh is one of the 148 centers of PEN International. It is a bilingual society of Bangladesh-based writers, poets, publishers, editors, translators, journalists and academics, aimed at promoting literature and defending the freedom of expression in Bangladesh.
