Humayun Azad

Humayun Azad (Bengali:  হুমায়ূন আজাদ ; 28 April 1947 – 12 August 2004) was a Bangladeshi author, poet, scholar and linguist. He wrote more than seventy titles. In 2012, the Government of Bangladesh honoured him with Ekushey Padak posthumously.

Professor Azad is regarded and honored as the most powerful and influential writer in the history of modern Bengali literature.

Professional and literary life

Azad was born in the village of Rarhikhal, Munshiganj district. He earned BA degree in Bengali language and literature from University of Dhaka. He obtained his PhD in linguistics from the University of Edinburgh in 1976. He later served as a faculty member of the department of Bengali language and literature at the University of Dhaka. His early career produced works on Bengali linguistics, notably syntax. He is regarded as a leading linguist of the Bengali language.

Towards the end of the 1980s, he started to write newspaper column focusing on contemporary socio-political issues. His commentaries continued throughout the 1990s and were later published as books as they grew in numbers. Through his writings of the 1990s, he established himself as a freethinker and appeared to be an agnostic. In his works, he openly criticised religious extremism, as well as Islam, the major religion in Bangladesh.