Cover Story
A POLYMATH OF OUR TIME
As a student of English literature at Dhaka University, Syed Shamsul Haq was once asked to write a paper on Milton's Paradise Lost. He wrote it without using any references or quotes. His professor did not like it and scolded him for not following the rules. He responded by leaving the class and the University for good saying, “University cannot teach me anything.” Today he is the polymath whose equal Bengali literature has not seen in ages. His work is taught at schools, colleges and universities. He writes magical verse plays, straight-from-the-heart poems and novels and stories with a deepened awareness of time in the depiction of the human condition. With words he can take the dark out of the night as well as paint the daytime black. He has been analysed, categorised, defined, dissected, detected, inspected, and rejected by a few, but never completely figured out. He has written about love and honour, pity and pride, compassion and sacrifice and peace and war. At 78, he has won every major award there is in the field of literature in the country.
Amitava Kar
“I write poetry, stories, novels, plays and essays. I do not consider them separate mediums. They all accomplish the same thing—expression through language. They all stem from the same source—language which is the only material I have like a painter…
