Our debt of gratitude to Abdul Quadir

• Main Author: Hasan, Md. Mahmudul
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: thedailystar.net 2019
• Subjects: PI Oriental languages and literatures
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/71098/1/71098_Our%20Debt%20of%20Gratitude%20to%20Abdul%20Quadir.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/71098/; https://www.thedailystar.net/literature/news/our-debt-gratitude-abdul-quadir-1712278?browserpush=true

Abdul Quadir (1906-84) was a poet-prosodist, essayist, editor, journalist, literary critic, bibliophile and collector of literary works. He came from Araisidha – the village where I was born – in the district of Brahmanbaria, so I feel a special affinity with him. The homes where he and I spent our childhoods are within 200 metres of each other. I grew up with the pride that our village produced this great poet and writer. Unfortunately, much to the peril of our understanding of the history of twentieth-century Bengali literature, he is not widely known and is somewhat neglected in literary scholarship. Had he been born in a country like Britain and contributed to English literature the way he did to Bengali literature, I presume he would have been remembered as an outstanding literary figure both in his country and abroad – both during his lifetime and afterwards.