70th birthday of Humayun Ahmed today
The 70th birthday of Humayun Ahmed, a great Bangladeshi writer, dramatist, screenwriter and filmmaker is being observed on Monday in a befitting manner, reports BSS.
Marking his birthday, Channel-i is organizing a fair ‘Humayun Mela’ on the television channel premises which will begin at 3.05 pm. Eminent personalities of different fields will inaugurate the fair which will end at 7pm.
"We feel proud to organize the fair for the legend. Stalls will be set up displaying books, cinemas and other works of Humayun Ahmed," Channel-i Managing Director Faridur Reza Sagar told BSS.
Besides, a discussion and recitation of poems will also be held in the fair. Channel-i and Radio Bhumi will air the programme live.
Humayun Ahmed, son of late Foyzur Rahman Ahmed and Ayesha Foyez, was born on November 13, 1948 at Kutubpur in Mymensingh. He died on July 19, 2012 at a hospital in New York, the USA.
In his childhood, Ahmed lived in Sylhet, Comilla, Chittagong, Bogra, Dinajpur and Panchagarh where his father was on official assignment.
Ahmed studied in Chittagong Collegiate School. He eventually passed Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examination from Bogra Zilla School in 1967 and was listed as second in merit by the Rajshahi Education Board.
He passed Higher Secondary School Certificate (HSC) examination from Dhaka College in 1969.
Ahmed then attended the University of Dhaka and graduated as a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and later obtained a Master of Science degree. He then worked as a lecturer at the Bangladesh Agricultural University for six months following which he joined Dhaka University to teach Chemistry.
Soon after, he went to the United States to earn his Ph.D. in Polymer Chemistry from North Dakota State University.
His breakthrough was his debut novel Nondito Naroke published in 1972. He wrote over 200 fiction and non-fiction books, all of which were bestsellers in Bangladesh.
His books were the top sellers at the Ekushey Book Fair during the 1990s and 2000s. He won the Bangla Academy Award and the Ekushey Padak award for his contribution to Bengali literature.
In the early 1990s, Ahmed emerged as a filmmaker. He went on to make a total of eight films - each based on his own novels. He received six Bangladesh National Film Awards in different categories for the films Daruchini Dwip, Aguner Poroshmoni and Ghetuputra Kamola.
Humayun's brother, Muhammad Zafar Iqbal, is a writer and academician. Another brother, Ahsan Habib, became a cartoonist. He had three sisters - Sufia Haider, Momtaz Shahid and Rukhsana Ahmed.
