The Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre (IGCC) is organising the launch of the book “In A Land Far From Home” by Syed Mujtaba Ali [Translation of “Deshe Bideshe” by Nazes Afroz] at 6pm today (May 4), at its Gulshan premises. 

An intrepid traveller and cosmopolitan, the legendary Bengali writer Syed Mujtaba Ali spent a year and a half teaching in Kabul from 1927 to 1929. Drawing on this experience, he later wrote “Deshe Bideshe” which was published in 1948.

His account provides a fascinating first-hand insight into events at a critical point in Afghanistan's history, when the reformist King Amanullah tried to steer his country towards modernity by encouraging education for girls. “Deshe Bideshe” is the only published eyewitness account of that tumultuous period by a non-Afghan.

The discussants of the book will be: journalist-writer-researcher Afsan Chowdhury and the translator, Nazes Afroz – a former BBC executive editor of South and Central Asia.