Tuhin Das (writer)

Last updated
Tuhin Das
Tuhin Das.jpg
Tuhin Das in 2022
Born1985 (age 3839)
Barisal, Bangladesh
OccupationActivist, poet, writer
LanguageBengali, English
Genreessay, poetry
Years active2000–present
Notable worksExile Poems
Website
tuhindas.com

Tuhin Das is a Bengali activist and writer living in exile. Das is best known for his Bengali poetry and political essays. His first English book Exile Poems focuses on his life as an exiled writer. [1]

Contents

After extremist threats, Tuhin Das fled to America for political asylum in 2016. He became a writer-in-residence at City of Asylum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania which offers sanctuary for persecuted writers. [2] In 2021, his house became a public art installation called Comma House featuring his Bengali poems. [3]

About

Tuhin Das was born in Barisal. He lived there with his family. Das started writing poems in the seventh grade. [4] Das was fascinated with the formation of his home country from an early age. He would establish and run his own publishing company which covered political issues. Das went into hiding after Al Qaeda-linked groups threatened him. [5]

In 2016 Das became a visiting scholar at Carnegie Mellon University. [6] He found a long-term home in Pittsburgh becoming the writer-in-residence at City of Asylum.

Activism

Tuhin Das writes political essays. His essays contained criticism of Muslim treatment of Hindu and other religious minorities in Bangladesh. He organized protests and urged the government to establish tribunals for war crimes that occurred during Bangladesh Liberation War. [4]

Publications

Tuhin is the author of eight poetry books in Bengali. [7] His books has received generally positive reviews. [8]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Dunn</span> American poet and educator (1939–2021)

Stephen Elliot Dunn was an American poet and educator who authored twenty-one collections of poetry. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 2000 collection, Different Hours, and received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He also won three National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships, Guggenheim Fellowship, and Rockefeller Foundations Fellowship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jibanananda Das</span> Indian poet (1899–1954)

Jibanananda Das was an Indian poet, writer, novelist and essayist in the Bengali language. Popularly called "Rupashi Banglar Kabi'', Das is the most read poet after Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam in Bangladesh and West Bengal. While not particularly well recognised during his lifetime, today Das is acknowledged as one of the greatest poets in the Bengali language.

Clinton B. Seely is an American academic and translator, and a scholar of Bengali language and literature. He has translated the works of Ramprasad Sen and Michael Madhusudan Dutt and written a biography of Bengali poet Jibanananda Das. He has also authored software packages related to Bengali. His latest book, Barisal and Beyond, was published in India in 2008.

James Raymond Daniels is an American poet and writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cornelius Eady</span> American poet (born 1954)

Cornelius Eady is an American writer focusing largely on matters of race and society. His poetry often centers on jazz and blues, family life, violence, and societal problems stemming from questions of race and class. His poetry is often praised for its simple and approachable language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bengali literature</span> Texts composed in the Bengali language

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.

Michael McFee is a poet and essayist from Asheville, North Carolina.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1899 in poetry</span> Overview of the events of 1899 in poetry

— Opening lines of Rudyard Kipling's White Man's Burden, first published this year

Peter Oresick was an American poet.

Gerald Costanzo is an American poet and publisher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terrance Hayes</span> American poet and educator

Terrance Hayes is an American poet and educator who has published seven poetry collections. His 2010 collection, Lighthead, won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2010. In September 2014, he was one of 21 recipients of a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, awarded to individuals who show outstanding creativity in their work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Cooley</span> American poet and professor

Peter Cooley is an American poet and Professor of English in the Department of English at Tulane University. He also directs Tulane's Creative Writing Program. Born in Detroit, Michigan, he holds degrees from Shimer College, the University of Chicago and the University of Iowa. He is the father of poet Nicole Cooley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Blanco</span> Spanish American poet and professor

Richard Blanco is an American poet, public speaker, author, playwright, and civil engineer. He is the fifth poet to read at a United States presidential inauguration, having read the poem "One Today" for Barack Obama's second inauguration. He is the first immigrant, the first Latino, the first openly gay person and at the time the youngest person to be the U.S. inaugural poet. In 2023, Blanco was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Biden from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Eve Shelnutt was an American poet and writer of short stories. She lived in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Athens, Ohio, and Worcester, Massachusetts. Over the course of her career, she taught at Western Michigan University University of Pittsburgh, Ohio University, and The College of the Holy Cross.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aminul Islam (poet)</span> Bangladeshi poet and essayist

Aminul Islam is a poet and essayist from Bangladesh. He has written 28 books including 23 books of poetry. He has been involved in creative writing for some 25 years.

Banalata Sen is a poetry volume containing 31 poems by the Bengali poet Jibanananda Das (1899–1954). The volume reflects the contextual struggles experienced by the poet in terms of love, liberty and loss during the Post-Tagore period. This book has been named "Banalata Sen" after Das's most popular poem, which explored human fulfillment through the personification of a vaidya caste woman. This pattern of progressively exploring human fulfillment through hyperbolising a character is common within this volume.

Walter Leuba (1902–1983) was a poet, writer, and book collector in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">City of Asylum</span> Nonprofit organization based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

City of Asylum is a nonprofit organization based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that helps writers exiled from their countries for their controversial writing.

References

  1. O'Driscoll, Bill (21 June 2022). "Dissident Bangladeshi writer explores homesickness, and Pittsburgh, in new poetry collection". WESA (FM) . Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  2. Shisman, Natalya (3 July 2022). "Tuhin Das: Learning to love a new home, and an old one". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . Retrieved 13 October 2022.
  3. Johnson, Michelle (16 February 2022). "Finding Refuge and Inspiration in the "City of Bridges": A Conversation with Tuhin Das". World Literature Today . Retrieved 13 October 2022.
  4. 1 2 "Tuhin Das: Poet, Activist and Writer in Exile". Voice of America . 15 February 2017. Retrieved 13 October 2022.
  5. "6 Bangladeshi Activists Threatened By Al Qaeda-Linked Islamists". The Economic Times . 11 August 2015. Retrieved 13 October 2022.
  6. Hirsch, Daniel (28 September 2017). "Professor Kathy M. Newman Wants You To Read Banned Books". Carnegie Mellon University . Retrieved 13 October 2022. Islamic fundamentalist groups known for murdering these writers have targeted Das.
  7. "Meet Tuhin Das from Bangladesh: Poet, Activist and Writer in Exile". Newsgram. 17 February 2017. Retrieved 13 October 2022.
  8. Waltz, Hannah (27 July 2022). "An Interview with Tuhin Das". PEN America. Retrieved 13 October 2022.