Today is the 79th birthday of noted writer, television presenter, organizer and activist Abdullah Abu Sayeed.
He was born in 1939 in Calcutta. His father was Azimuddin Ahmed, a teacher of both English and Bengali literature.
Sayeed was also a playwright. He passed SSC exam from Pabna Zilla School in 1955 and HSC exam from Profollo Chandra College in 1957. He later earned the degree of BA and MA in Bengali from the University of Dhaka in 1960 and 1961 respectively.
Sayeed was a professor of the Bengali language in Dhaka College. In mid-1970s he started presenting Shaptabarna (Seven Colors), a TV show in Bangladesh Television. In 1978, he founded the Bishwa Sahitya Kendra.
Sayeed was given the 97th Ramon Magsaysay Award in Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts for ‘cultivating in the youth of Bangladesh a love for literature and its humanizing values through exposure to the great books of Bengal and the world’.
Other awards include: National Television award (1977), Mahbub Ullah Trust Award (1998), Ekushey Padak (2005), Bangla Academy Award (2011) for his essays and Star Lifetime Award on Education (2016).