Kazi Anis Ahmed

Kazi Anis Ahmed (Bengali:কাজী আনিস আহমেদ) is a Bangladeshi writer, publisher and businessman.^[1] He is a co-founder^[2] and publisher of the English-language daily newspaper Dhaka Tribune, online news portal Bangla Tribune^[3] and the literary journal Bengal Lights. Ahmed is the author of three works of fiction. He is a co-director of the annual Bangladeshi literary festival, Dhaka Lit Fest.

Kazi Anis Ahmed
Born	1970 (age 53–54) Dhaka, Bangladesh
Nationality	Bangladeshi
Parent	Kazi Shahid Ahmed (father)
Relatives	Kazi Nabil Ahmed (sibling)

Early life and education

Kazi Anis Ahmed was born in Dhaka, East Pakistan. His father, Kazi Shahid Ahmed, was the founder and chairman of the Gemcon Group, and also a writer and novelist in the Bengali language.^[4]

Career

Writings

Ahmed's first collection of short stories, Good Night, Mr. Kissinger, was published by The University Press Limited^[5] in Bangladesh and launched at the Hay Festival Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2012.^[6] Ahmed's first novel, The World in My Hands, was published by Random House India in December 2013. The book is a political satire that charts the fate of two friends – a newspaper editor and a successful property developer – whose relationship is bitterly tested when they find themselves on opposite sides of a crisis that upends their country's social order.^[7][8] An early work of Ahmed's, Forty Steps (3 novella), has been published in a bi-lingual edition by Bengal Lights. It was translated into Bengali by renowned translator Manabendra Bandyopadhyay.

Business

Ahmed is a Director of the Gemcon Group, which was founded by his father, Kazi Shahed Ahmed, 1979.^[9] He has worked among other projects, for the Kazi and Kazi Tea Estate, Ltd. (KKTE).^[10] Ahmed steered KKTE to emerge as the first successful organic tea estate in Bangladesh. He is co-founder of the Teatulia^[11] brand of Kazi and Kazi Tea, which sells in the USA, UK,^[12] Japan, China and other markets.^[13][14][15]

He is a co-founder of University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh and the Vice-President of the Board of Trustees of the same university.

Publishing

Ahmed is also publisher of the English-language daily newspaper Dhaka Tribune, the Bengali-language online newspaper Bangla Tribune^[3] and the literary journal Bengal Lights.^[16] Ahmed contributes to international newspapers and journals such as The New York Times,^[17] TIME,^[18] The Guardian,^[19] Daily Beast, Wall Street Journal,^[20] and Nikkei Asian Review,^[21] and Politico.^[22] He has co-curated special issues on Bangladesh in the literary journals Wasafiri and Granta. He wrote the opening essay for the Puterbaugh essay series in World Literature Today in December 2015^[23] and was published in the Journal of Asian Studies in 2018.^[24] Kazi Anis Ahmed, a writer and publisher of English daily Dhaka Tribune and online news portal Bangla Tribune, has been elected as the new president of PEN Bangladesh -- an international organization of writers, bloggers and journalists.^[25]

Literary works

• Good Night, Mr. Kissinger (Unnamed Press, 2014), ISBN 978-1-939419-04-0
• The World in My Hands (Random House India, 2013)
• Forty Steps

See also

• List of Bangladeshi writers
• Bangladeshi English literature

References

1. . www.gemcon.group. Archived from the original on 18 May 2018. Retrieved 8 May 2018.
2. . University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh. Archived from the original on 8 May 2018. Retrieved 8 May 2018.
3. "Bangla Tribune - Bangla news, Behind The News". banglatribune.com. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
4. "Kazi Shahid Ahmed's new novel 'Daate Kata Pencil' unveiled". Dhaka Tribune. Retrieved 8 May 2018.
5. Sameer Rahim (17 November 2012). "Hay Dhaka 2012: The Assassin's Creed". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
6. David Shook (20 November 2012). "English-Language Literature Finds Its Place in Bangladesh". HuffPost. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
7. Fayeka Zabeen Siddiqua (3 January 2014). "The World in My Hands". The Daily Star. from the original on 6 January 2014. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
8. "Mihir S Sharma: Writing a country". Business Standard. 13 January 2014. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
9. "Board of Directors - Gemcon Group". Retrieved 29 November 2019.
10. "Teatulia Is Taking on the Tea Industry, From Garden to Cup". WestWord. Retrieved 29 November 2019.
11. "From Bangladesh To Colorado: How One Company Is Turning More Americans Onto Tea By Sharing Its Story". Forbes. Retrieved 29 November 2019.
12. "Teatulia Literary Tea Shop Opens in London's Covent Garden". World Tea News. Retrieved 29 November 2019.
14. "Dr. Kazi Anis Ahmed at the Legatum Convergence (MIT) October 27-28, 2011". MIT Legatum Convergence. Retrieved 29 November 2019.
15. . SUCCESS Magazine. 15 November 2012. Archived from the original on 9 May 2018. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
16. . The Daily Star. 31 December 2013. Archived from the original on 1 February 2014.
17. "Articles by K. Anis Ahmed". Retrieved 1 April 2019.
18. "Beating Terrorism in Bangladesh Requires Public and Personal Commitment". 11 July 2016. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
19. "Things we don't write: K Anis Ahmed on the murdered writers of Bangladesh". 9 December 2015. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
20. "Bangladesh's Vanishing Justice". 30 April 2012. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
21. "Bangladesh faces growing strain in Rohingya crisis". 13 December 2017. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
22. "'Tis but a modest migration proposal". 19 September 2015. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
23. "Fiction: A Transgressive Art". January 2016. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
24. "In Bangladesh: Direct Control of Media Trumps Fake News". 17 December 2018. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
25. "Kazi Anis Ahmed new PEN Bangladesh president". Dhaka Tribune. 11 July 2021. Retrieved 7 August 2021.

External links

• Official Website