Taslima Nasreen, an award-winning writer, physician, secular humanist and human rights activist, is known for her powerful writings on women oppression and unflinching criticism of religion, despite forced exile and multiple fatwas calling for her death. In India, Bangladesh and abroad, Nasreen’s fiction, nonfiction, poetry and memoir have topped the best-seller’s list.

Taslima Nasreen was born in Bangladesh. She started writing when she was 13. Her writings won the hearts of people across the border and she landed with the prestigious literary award Ananda from India in 1992. Taslima won The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament in 1994. She received the Kurt Tucholsky Award from Swedish PEN, the Simone de Beauvoir Award and Human Rights Award from Government of France, Le Prix de l' Edit de Nantes from the city of Nantes, France, Academy prize from the Royal Academy of arts, science and literature from Belgium. She is a Humanist Laureate in The International Academy for Humanism,USA. She won Distinguished Humanist Award from International Humanist and Ethical Union, Free-thought Heroine award from Freedom From Religion foundation, USA., IBKA award, Germany,and Feminist Press Award, USA . She got the UNESCO Madanjeet Singh prize for Promotion of the Tolerance and Non-violence in 2005. She received the Medal of honor of Lyon. She got honorary citizenship from Paris, Nantes, Lyon, Metz, Thionville, Esch etc. Taslima was awarded the Condorcet-Aron Prize at the “Parliament of the French Community of Belgium” in Brussels and Ananda literary award again in 2000.

Bestowed with honorary doctorates from Gent University and UCL in Belgium, and American University of Paris and Paris Diderot University in France, she has addressed gatherings in major venues of the world like the European Parliament, National Assembly of France, Universities of Sorbonne, Oxford, Harvard, Yale, etc. She got fellowships as a research scholar at Harvard and New York Universities. She was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow in the USA in 2009.

Taslima has written 40 books in Bengali, which includes poetry, essays, novels and autobiography series. Her works have been translated in thirty different languages. Some of her books are banned in Bangladesh. Because of her thoughts and ideas she has been banned, blacklisted and banished from Bengal, both from Bangladesh and West Bengal part of India. She has been prevented by the authorities from returning to her country since 1994, and to West Bengal since 2007.

Person of the forest.

Orangutan is a Malay word. It means person of the forest.

A couple of hundred Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus, the rarest orangutans, are recently found in the forests of Indonesia. Orangutans share 97% of our DNA. They are our cousins, but we don’t spare them, we kill them the way we kill other animals. The truth is, we have killed almost all Orangutans. Only a few thousands of Orangutans are left in the world. They will soon be extinct if no serious initiative is taken to get rid of the threats they are facing. Orangutans are dying out because of habitat destruction, deforestation, palm-oil plantations. The plantation guys kill Orangutans for crop protection, and pay $100 for a dead Orangutan. Hundreds of Orangutans get killed every year. Congolese people kill Gorillas to make exotic hand ashtrays. Do people in Indonesia and Malaysia kill Orangutans to make souvenir ashtrays out of their dried hands to sell to the horrid tourist trade!

The forests will be there. But no ‘person’ will be in the forests.

The face tells all.

Australopithecus sediba was half human-like and half chimp-like animal.

Researchers said, “Sediba shows a strange mix of primitive australopithecine traits and derived Homo traits — face and anterior dentition like Homo, shape of the cranium like Homo, other parts of the face and size of the cranium like an australopithecine, arms like an australopithecine, pelvis and lower limbs like Homo and feet and ankles like an australopithecine!”

After having all the evidences of evolution, I wonder how billions of people still continue believing in funny Adam and Eve story!

I’ll be there for you!

Bonobos like to share. Yes, they do.
Like humans, Bonobos even share food with strangers.
Bonobos share with strangers to get better acquainted.
Bonobos share to make new friends! Bonobos are intelligent, social!
I do not think they share only for social benefits,
I think they share because they care for others.
Like humans, Bonobos love.
Love and compassion help our species survive.

Taslima Nasreen

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Person of the forest.

The face tells all.

I’ll be there for you!

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