'A Book – Best Described with Silence!'

Photo: Courtesy

Genre: Open Letter/Non-Fiction

Target Reader: Adult

Publisher: Tamralipi (Book Fair Stall#229)

1st Published: February 2017

©: Writer's Successors

Dedicated to: Youngest Daughter-in-Law, Rita

Cover: Ahsan Habib

Price: 160/- (At Book Fair: 120/-)

ISBN: 984-70096-7-0361-7

This is one of those books which right after you finish reading, all you want to do is -- NOTHING! Maybe just sit at the corner of a dark balcony, with no-one around you to talk to, nothing in front to look at, or anything in your mind to think about – just utter silence is what you need.

'The Last Letter' published in 2017 is an open-letter written by Ayesha Faiz, who died on September 2014, to his eldest son -- the undisputed emperor of contemporary Bengali literature --  Humayun Ahmed -- who died in July 2012.

Among Bengali readers all over the world, it is very hard to find one who has not read Humayun Ahmed and even harder to find one who has never fallen in love with his work. Writer Humayun Ahmed was a living legend to all of us, but in this book you will discover him just as a son of a simple Bangladeshi mother -- A mother who with the heaviest heart writes to her dead son, as if she is talking to him.

Ayesha Faiz, mother of Humayun Ahmed, is also the mother of Science-Fiction writer Dr Muhammad Zafar Iqbal and Cartoonist Ahsan Habib -- also a writer and Editor/Publisher of Satire Magazine UNMAD. This book is about one of the most talked about family in the nation.  It's filled with many stories that have been never told before. The family took two years to decide whether to publish it or not, before they finally gave it to a certain publisher, very close to their family, to print.

From the 'Forward' written by her daughter, Sufia Haider, the reader will get to know that the first published approached to publish this book had declined to do so and returned the manuscript! Finally, Tamralipi Publication took the responsibility to publish the book.

Sufia Haider, not a professional writer, also gives us one more reason to believe that this family is probably not only the most 'popular' in the nation, but also the family of fathomless talent and yet to be discovered gifts. The 750-word "Forward' will shock the reader, sadden, infuriate the reader.

By the time the reader finished off with this book, so much from the family will be out in the open -- however, the outpourings of love would never cease.

Anik Khan is a Poet and Journalist.