Manju Sarkar

Manju Sarkar, one of the leading novelist, short story and fiction writer in Bengali literature from Bangladesh, started his career as a short story writer, published his book Abinashi Ayoujan (The Eternal Arrangement) in 1982. After that he did not look back. Till date Manju has authored 40 books of novel, short stories and juvenile fiction. Most recently he has published Sinduker Chabi (A novel, (2009).
Manju Sarkar hails from the poverty-stricken northern part of Bangladesh which has been long remained outside the focus of society. He arrived at the literary scenario of Bengal at an early age with brilliant depiction of life of marginalized rural people. These short stories earned praise for the young writer for its stark realism as well as depiction of life in multiple dimensions. Later on, as he settled in the capital city, his writings became a study in urbanization, the turmoil and troubles faced by the poor and middle class people, -- the violence, bigotry, corruption and misrule affecting the whole of society. Manju Sarkar, through his short stories and novels, has depicted the pains and hopes, shattered dreams and never-ending struggle of the people of Bangladesh in its totality.
Manj's first novel Tamas (The darkness) published in 1984 was highly acclaimed by literary critics. Out of his 24 novels, Abasvumi (The dueling land) won the Philips literary award as the Best Novel in 1995. Another outstanding novel Protima Upakhyan (The story of Protima) also won Alaol Literary prize. Writing in prolific Bengali-language tradition, Manju writes also children and juvenile fiction, two of his children's book got Agrani Bank Literary Award.
Manju Sarkar, like other authors of Bangladesh, writes in Bengali and thereby has to face the same problem with no access to readers in major languages as very few of contemporary Bengali writing has been translated into English; So far only six of his short stories got translated into English. Manju took part in a three months residency program in 2006, organized by international writing program of the University of Iowa, USA. His participations was sponsored by the govt. of theUSA.
A former government official, Manju is currently working in the oldest Bengali daily newspaper 'The Daily Ittefaq' as its Assistant Editor and lives in Dhaka. He got the highest literary award of the country, Bangla Academy Award in 1998 for his total work.
was born in 1954.