S0321-50750000617-4-1

Article

Published

Volume 688 Issue 11

70-72

Taslima Nasrin (b. 1962) is a Bangladesh writer and radical feminist. In her poems, novels, and newspaper columns she has advocated equal rights for women and attacked male chauvinism in a country dominated by conservative Islam. In September, 1993 members of an obscure religious group called the Soldiers of Islam demanded Nasrin’s execution, posting a reward for her death.Nasrin’s 1993 novel, Lajja, or Shame, containing scenes in which Muslim men rape Hindu women, sparked a campaign against her that escalated in Bangladesh into riots and increases in the amounts of money offered for her murder. Her case became an international cause cйlиbre when the Bangladeshi government banned her novel and decided to prosecute her. After seeking refuge in Sweden, Nasrin responded to her persecution by attacking Islamic fundamentalists in her another novel, Shodh, or Revenge. Her judgments in attacking her enemies and some of her self-serving statements have been questioned even by the liberals sympathetic to her cause both in India and Bangladesh. An avowed atheist, she argues for a modern, secular state as the only way to protect women’s rights.Our magazine is publishing a story “Motherhood” by Taslima Nasrin.

01.11.2014

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