Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of Bangladesh, received a “Special Literary Award” from the Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature (FOSWAL) yesterday for his triptych The Unfinished Memoirs, The Prison Diaries, and New China 1952.

“Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature is honoured to present SAARC Literature Award- 2023 in its 63rd Literature Festival to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman for outstanding literary excellence for his trilogy,” prior to presenting the prize, a statement was read.

The award was officially presented to the visiting Bangladeshi authors and researchers Ramendu Majumder and Mofidul Haque at the festival by eminent Punjabi novelist and FOSWAL Founder President Ajeet Cour.
Since 2001, the Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature (FOSWAL) has given out the SAARC Literary Award each year.

The citation however, said, “Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, architect of Independent Bangladesh, ‘Bangabandhu’ to his people, is a towering figure of national liberation of oppressed people of the world. Like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, he was brutally murdered by the forces of darkness, but no power on earth can erase him from history.”

It added, “A new dimension of his life opened up when his long-lost prison diary and notebook came to light and subsequently published”.

The trilogy “has great merit as a political document and a human testament written with love and compassion, by a man who changed the course of history and led his people to freedom,” according to the citation.

“It is the proud privilege of the Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature to honour Sheikh Mujibur Rahman for outstanding literary excellence for his trilogy”, it added.