BIOGRAPHIES

KAISER HAQ is a poet, essayist, translator and professor of English. Published in the Streets of Dhaka- Collected Poems (Dhaka: UPL) and The Woman Who Flew (Delhi: Penguin), a translation of Nasreen Jahan's 'Urukku' are his most recent books.

HUMAYUN AHMED is a towering figure in the world of Bangladeshi fiction. His notable works include Shankhoneel Karagar, Nondito Norokey and Jostnya O Jononeer Golpo, He died on July 19 this year at the age of 63.

NIAZ ZAMAN, supernumerary professor, Department of English, University of Dhaka and adviser, Department of English, Independent University, Bangladesh, is a writer, translator, and editor. Her most recent work includes The Baromashi Tapes and A Different Sita. She has published two anthologies of short stories, The Dance and Other Stories (the titular story of which won an Asiaweek award) and Didima's Necklace and Other Stories. She has also edited several short story anthologies.

AL MAHMUD (1936- ) is one of Bangladesh's leading Bengali poets. His first collection of poem Lok Lokantor was published in 1963. Later books, such as Kaler Kalosh (1966), Sonali Kabin (1966), and Mayabi Porda Dule Otho (1976) consolidated his reputation. In addition to writing poetry, Mahmud writes short stories, novels and essays among which 'Pankourir Rakta' (The Cormorant's Blood) is considered to be the most famous.

AHMEDE HUSSAIN is the writer of 'Blues for Allah', a novella published in 'Colloquy text theory critique', Monash University, Australia's journal in 2006. He is the editor of The New Anthem: The Subcontinent in its Own Words (Delhi: Tranquebar Press; 2009). He is at work on Fitna, his first novel.

ZAFAR ANJUM is a Singapore-based Indian journalist and writer. One of his short stories, 'Waiting for the Angels', was a finalist for “The Little Magazine New Writing Prize” (2006) for emerging Indian writers. His stories have been anthologised in Monsoon Books' Love and Lust in Singapore (2010), Crime Scene: Singapore (2010) and Best of Southeast Asian Erotica (2010). Zafar is currently at work on his second novel and his first feature-length screenplay.

SHOMIR THEO (Theo Gomes) teaches English at Eastern University and is a member of the Brine Pickles writers' group.

A graphic designer by training, IRAM AKHTAR cultivates poetry as a secret passion.

An early draft of SUMANA ROY's first novel, Love in the Chicken's Neck, was long listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008. Her work has been published in Guernica, Caravan, Cha, Seminar, Open, Biblio, Himal Southasian, among others. She lives in Siliguri, West Bengal, India.

UZMA ASLAM KHAN was born in Lahore and grew up in Karachi. She is the author of three novels, including Trespassing and The Geometry of God. Trespassing was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize Eurasia 2003 and translated into fourteen languages. The Geometry of God was voted one of Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2009 and won a bronze medal in the Independent Publisher Book Awards 2010. It has recently been released in Italy, Spain, and France. Khan's fourth novel, forthcoming in the US, Canada, and India in Fall 2012, is Thinner than Skin. “Ice, Mating,” an excerpt of Thinner than Skin, was featured in Granta's hugely popular issue on Pakistan.

RIFAT ISLAM ESHA is a Teaching Assistant in the English Department of North South University.

PUSHPITA ALAM works as a project manager at Brac but regards poetry as her true vocation.

RAZIA SULTANA KHAN is a fiction writer and poet. She teaches English at Independent University, Bangladesh.

SHARBARI AHMED received her MA in Creative Writing, Fiction from New York University. Her stories have appeared in the Gettysburg Review, The Caravan, The Asian Pacific American Journal, Salt, Catamaran and the Zine, Ripe Guava, and in the anthology A New Anthem (ed. Ahmede Hussain; Delhi: Tranquebar, India; 2009) She is also a playwright. Her first play Raisins Not Virgins was produced in NYC, LA, Boston, and Dhaka.

SADAF SAAZ SIDDIQI is a poet and writer, an entrepreneur, a scientist and a women's rights activist. Her poems have been published in national dailies and various anthologies, and were featured in the short film 'Duniya'. She is also co-producer of Hay Festival Dhaka.

---

---