15th death anniversary of Ahmed Sofa today

Today is the 15th death anniversary of Bangladeshi poet, novelist, writer, critic, translator and intellectual Ahmed Sofa.

He wrote novels, poetry and non-fiction essays. Sofa helped establishing Bangladesh Lekhak Shibir (Bangladesh Writers’ Camp) in 1970 to ‘organise liberal writers in order to further the cause of the progressive movement’.

Born at Gachbaria in Chittagong district, Sofa’s career as a writer began in the 1960s. He was never married. On 28 July 2001, Sofa died in a hospital in Dhaka. He was buried in Martyred Intellectuals’ Graveyard.

Sofa’s outspoken personality and bold self-expression brought him into the limelight. At the same time, he was very affectionate towards the younger generation, who gathered around him. He was never seen hankering after fame in a trivial sense. He was a secular thinker.

Sofa’s fictions were often based on his personal experience. He protested social injustice and tried to portray the hopes and dreams of common people through his writing.

Sofa always handled his novels with meticulous thought and planning. The trend of telling mere stories in novels never attracted him; he was innovative in both form and content.