Humayun Ahmed Details
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| Humayun Ahmed |
Type of Publisher : Books
Total Book Published : 235
Humayun Ahmed (13 November 1948 – 19 July 2012) is arguably the most famous contemporary Bengali fictionist and playwright who has been writing for over thirty five years. Formerly a professor of Chemistry at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, he is now a full-time author and movie-maker.Humayun Ahmed was born to Foyzur Rahman (a high-ranked police officer and writer, who gained martyrdom in the liberation war of Bangladesh) and Ayesha Foyez on 13 November 1948 in Kutubpur of Mymensingh district in then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. Humayun Ahmed's younger brother Muhammed Zafar Iqbal, a university professor, is also a famous writer, newspaper columnist who attained fame for writing science fictions and youngster novels. Another brother, Ahsan Habib (cartoonist), is the editor of the only cartoon magazine of Bangladesh, Unmad.
Humayun Ahmed was married to Gultekin, granddaughter of Principal Ibrahim Khan, in 1973. They had five children, but were divorced in 2003, after which Ahmed married Meher Afroz Shaon.
Humayun Ahmed attended the Chittagong Collegiate School, Comilla Zilla School (some time) and Bogra Zilla School. He passed intermediate from the Dhaka College. After graduating from the University of Dhaka, Ahmed joined the Department of Chemistry in the same university as a lecturer. He obtained his PhD in polymer chemistry from North Dakota State University under the guidance of Professor Joseph Edward Glass. Ahmed retired from the University of Dhaka for the sake of writing and film-making. He is an honorary fellow in writing at the University of Iowa.[citation needed]
Towards the end of the 20th century Humayun Ahmed emerged as the most well-known novelist and story-writer of Bengali literature since Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay. At least for the last two decades, Humayun Ahmed's books have been topping the bestseller list by a big margin [1]. He has also achieved unprecedented success as a playwright since he started writing screenplays for television in late 1980s. In the early 1990s, he entered the movie-world and proved to be a successful filmmaker in spite of clear departure from the trend of traditional Bangladeshi movies. Although his novels and stories frequently build around urban middle-class life, his focus on rural Bangladesh is not at all negligible.
Humayun Ahmed often shows a fascination for creating stories around supernatural events. Also, he is considered the father of modern Bengali science fiction, having published a number of science fiction books since the 1980s. As an author, he essentially belongs to the genre whose style is characterized by magic realism[2] In a popular survey conducted by the BBC, Humayun Ahmed was elected as one of the ten great living Bengalis.
Humayun Ahmed often shows a fascination for creating stories around supernatural events. Also, he is considered the father of modern Bengali science fiction, having published a number of science fiction books since the 1980s. As an author, he essentially belongs to the genre whose style is characterized by magic realism[2] In a popular survey conducted by the BBC, Humayun Ahmed was elected as one of the ten great living Bengalis.
Death
After a nine-month struggle against colorectal cancer, he died at Bellevue Hospital in New York on 19 July 2012 at 11.20 PM BST.[1]After 12 sessions of chemotherapy, he had undergone a successful operation in June 2012. He also had a tumor in his liver which was successfully removed. But after the surgery, he got infected with an unknown virus which quickly spread through his body. Shortly after, he was transferred to ICU after losing consciousness and it was there that he was pronounced dead. Only a day earlier his relatives informed the media that he was in a stable condition with some complications contrasting an earlier media claim that he was comatose in a critical condition.