Nilima Ibrahim

Nilima Ibrahim (Bengali: নীলিমা ইব্রাহীম; 1921–2002) was a Bangladeshi educationist, littérateur and social worker. She is well known for her scholarship on Bengali literature but even more so for her depiction of raped and tortured women in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War in her book Ami Birangona Bolchhi (I, the heroine, speaks).

Nilima was born on 11 January 1921 in Bagerhat, Khulna to Zamindar Prafulla Roy Chowdhury and Kusum Kumari Devi. Nilima passed her school leaving examination and entrance level examinations from the Khulna Coronation Girls' School in 1937 and from the Victoria Institution in Calcutta in 1939. Later she earned bachelor's degrees in arts and teaching from the Scottish Church College, which was followed by an MA in Bengali literature from the University of Calcutta in 1943. She would also earn a doctorate in Bengali literature from the University of Dhaka in 1959.

Nilima was a career academic. She taught in respectively the Khulna Coronation Girls' School, Loreto House, the Victoria Institution, and finally at the University of Dhaka, where she was appointed as a lecturer in 1956, and as a professor of Bengali in 1972. She also served as the chairperson of the Bangla Academy, and as the Vice Chairperson of the World Women's Federation's South Asian Zone.

Non-fiction

• Sharat-Pratibha (The Creative Faculty of Sharatchanda), 1960,
• Banglar Kavi Madhusudan (Madhushudan, the Poet of Bengal), 1961,
• Unabingsha Shatabdir Bangali Samaj o Bangla Natak (Bengali Society and Bengali Drama in the 19th century), 1964,
• Bangla Natak: Utsa o Dhara (Bengali Drama: Origin and Development), 1972,
• Begum Rokeya, 1974,
• Bangalimanas o Bangla Sahitya (Bengali Mentality and Bengali Literature), 1987,
• Sahitya-Sangskrtir Nana Prasanga (Various Aspects of Literature and Culture), 1991

Fiction

• Bish Shataker Meye (Girl of the Twentieth Century), 1958,
• Ek Path Dui Bank (The Forked Road), 1958,
• Keyabana Sancharini (Traveller of Keya Forest), 1958,
• Bahni Balya (The Bangle of Fire), 1985

Plays

• Due Due Char (Two and Two Make Four), 1964,
• Je Aranye Alo Nei (The Dark Forest), 1974,
• Rodjwala Bikel (The Sunburnt Afternoon), 1974,
• Suryaster Par (After Sunset), 1974

Short stories

• Ramna Parke (At Ramna Park), 1964

Translations

• Eleanor Roosevelt, 1955,
• Kathashilpi James Fenimor Cooper (Storyteller James Fenimore Cooper), 1968,
• Bostoner Pathe Pathe (On the Streets of Boston), 1969

Travelogue

• Shahi Elakar Pathe Pathe (Along the Royal Streets), 1963

Autobiography

• Bindu-Visarga (Dot and Ghost), 1991

Narratives/Ethnography

• Ami Virangana Bolchhi (I, the Heroine, Speaks), 1996

• Bangla Academy Award (1969)
• Michael Madhusudan Award (1987)
• Lekhika Sangha Award (1989)
• Ananya Literary Award (1996)
• Begum Rokeya Medal (1996)
• Bangabandhu Award (1997)
• Ekushey Padak (2000)