Canadian Bengali Literary Festival in southwest Scarborough attended by large number of writers
By SUBRATA KUMAR DAS
The Canadian Bengali Literary Festival was held at St Paul’s United Church in southwest Scarborough on July 20.
Along with a good number of Bengali authors from Vancouver, Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Kingston and Waterloo and the Greater Toronto Area and its adjacent cities, three former poet laureates of Toronto Anne Michaels, A F Moritz and George Elliott Clarke graced the event with their attendance.
The six-hour event was hosted by Samina Chowdhury, while Subrata Kumar Das, the initiator of Canada Journal (and the writer of this report), explained the objectives of the initiative among which making a bridge between the mainstream Canadian writers and Bengali writers living in Canada is the foremost.
The popular Toronto-based Bengali channel NRB TV and Bengali weekly the BanglaMail supported the event as a media partners. Shahidul Islam Mintu, on their behalf, gave a speech.
It is worth mentioning that BanglaMail has published a 56-page tabloid size special issue focussing on the different aspects of Canada. A total of 27 Bengali writers living from coast-to-coast-to-coast in Canada contributed to the special issue of which Das was the guest editor. He stated stated that this special issue should hopefully help the thousands of Bangladeshi newcomers to know about Canada and adjust to the life and system of their new country.
At the festival, a session ‘Reading by the poet laureates’ was conducted by translator Sreyoshi Bose while the laureates were introduced and interviewed by Sujit Kusum Paul, Momo Kazi and Tasmina Khan. Current Toronto Poet laureate of Toronto Lillian Allen sent a video message wishing the event a success.
A good number of noted Canadian Bengali authors participated in many different segments on their creations on major literary genres. Akbar Hossain chaired the session on nonfiction which was participated by Dr. Jharna Chatterjee, Sudhir Saha, Hasan Mahmud, Syed Iqbal and Atonu Das Gupa.
Shekhor E Gomes led the session on poetry in which he had Shahana Akter Mohua, Kazi Helal, Rakeeb Hassan and Sultana Shirin Shazi as his panellists.
In the session on fiction, chaired by Salma Bani, the fiction writers who joined were Nahar Monica, Jakaria Muhammad Moyen Uddin and Sushil Podder.
At the outset of the literary event, writers expressed their solidarity with the recent student killing in Bangladesh by standing for one minute in silence.
A quiz competition for the teens and youths on the literature, culture and heritage of Bengal was conducted by Souradrita Bhowmik and Sourodeep Bhowmik. Noted Barrister Omar Hasan Al Zahid distributed prizes among the winners with a short speech.
