Mohammad Nurul Huda image
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Biography

Mohammad Nurul Huda (Bengali: ???????? ????? ????), is a Bangladeshi poet and novelist. He is recognized a major poet of 1960s, with more than fifty poetry books to his credit.

Life

Mohammad Nurul Huda was born to Mohammad Sekander and Anjuman Ara Begum in Poak Khali of Cox's Bazar district, Bangladesh on 30 September 1949. After high school, he studied English Literature at the Dhaka University and obtained his B. A. with Honours in 1970 and M. A. in 1972. He participated in training courses at the East West Centre, Hawaii. After graduaiton he taught English in a colleges for about five years and then at the Dhaka University for a brief period. His literary career commenced early and he emerged in 1960s as a promising modern poet. He is the President of the Bangladesh Writers? Club.

Career

In 2007, Mohammad Nurul Huda retired as Director of Bangla Academy, Dhaka. He put in thirty four years service in this most prestigious scholalry institution of the country. Till date he works as the Executive Editor of the Bangla Academy Journal. At the Bangla Academy, he worked as the Project Director, Young Writers? Project. He also served as the Executive Director of the Nazrul Institute, Dhaka. He was a Consultant of WIPO, Geneva. Currently he teaches English in Darul Ihsan University, Dhaka. Also, he contributes a regular column entitled Sadakotha (tr. Plain Tales) on social. political and cultural aspects of contemporary Bangladesh.

Literary Achievement

A leading prolific writer of the country with sizeable contribution in various branches of literature, Huda is best known as a poet. He is particularly acclaimed as jatisattar kobi meaning 'the poet of national identity'. A versatile writer, he is also widely known as an essayist, literary critic, translator, folklorist and IPR-specialist for copyright and traditional cultural expressions.

Mr Huda has also published two novels that brought him fame of a fiction writer with a difference. His Jonmajati (tr. Birthrace) published in February 1994 is being acclaimed as 'an open-ended postmodern novel signaling a significantly newer turn in the world of Bangla fiction'. The novel is also remarkable for its discovery of a unique folk universe, the background being the Lusai hills and the vast coastal area with a rare geographical setting of sea and hills and plains. The theme of this novel revolves around the genesis of mankind, emphasizing on the sexual behavior of the primitive dwellers of this part of the world as well as reexamining both the Biblical theory and Darwin's proposition of man's coming to this earth.

Huda's translation of famous Turkish Poet Yunus Emre's poems in collaboration with Arshaduzzaman has been widely acclaimed at home and abroad. He has also translated Nazrul's famous poems entitled 'Kemal Pasha' and 'Wardrum' into English. He was decorated with state honour as an outstanding personality contributing to the promotion of Turkish-Bangladesh relations by S. Demirel, the President of Turkey during his Bangladesh visit marking the silver jubilee celebration of independence of Bangladesh on 25 March 1997.

The number of Huda's published titles (book-length) exceeds 100, of which 50 are poetry (including his selected poems, love poems, nationhood poems etc.), 9 essays and literary criticisms, 3 novels, 1 biography, 5 translations and the rest are compiled and edited ones. A list of his selected publications is given separately.

Journals and Magazines

Journals-Magazines edited and compiled by Huda are as follows :
Poiema (1980) editor, poetry magazine in English
Bangla Academy Patrika ( 1983-1992) executive editor
Studies ( a bulletin on folklore from ICLCS, Dhaka, 1995) editor
Kobita Club (little magazine, 1995), editor
Nazrul Institute Patrika (from 1996 August to January 2001)
Nazrul Institute Journal (from August 1997 to January 2001)
Bangla Academy Journal (1983-2006 Sept.) executive editor

Awards

Bangla Academy Literary Award (1988)
Poet of International Merit (ISP, 1995)
Poet of the Year nominated (ISP, Maryland, USA, 1995)
President?s Honor from Turkey (1996)
Mahadiganta Poetry Award (Calcutta), 2007
Jessore Sahitya Parishad Award (1983)
Abul Hasan Poetry Prize (1983)
Alaol Award (1985)
Awami Shilpa Sangbardhana (1987)
Cox's Bazar Medal (1989)

Publications

More than 100 titles in total to his credit as of February 2007. Some English titles are Selected Poems (poetry), Flaming Flowers : Poets? Response to the Emergence of Bangladesh (research), Nazrul : an Evaluation (edited essays), Poetry of Kazi Nazrul Islam in English Translation (translated and edited with an introduction and notes), Nazrul?s Aesthetics and Other Aspects (essays), In Blissful Hell (translation). Wedding and Wild Kite (translation), Bangla Academy Journal (edited), Poiema (edited). Nazrul Institute Journal (edited). Methodology : Valuation of Identified TECs of Bangladesh. (research, Dhaka), Traditional Cultural Expressions (manuscript: 2006).

Work on Intellectual Property

Poet-author Mohammad Nurul Huda has been working on matters relating to intellectual property since last few years. On 12 December 2007 he presented a seminal work at the Top Level Forum on Intellectual Property organized by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO/OMPI), held in Geneva, Switzerland. The main focus of his paper was Traditional Knowledge (TK) and Traditional Cultural Expressions (TCE). He presented an estimation of the value of yearly transaction TCE in Bangladesh. ..