Quick Facts
Biography
Noorjahan Bose (born 14 March 1938) is a Bangladeshi writer and women's rights activist. She won Bangla Academy Literary Award in the autobiography category in 2016. She founded Aasha and Sanghati – nonprofit organizations focusing on women empowerment.
Background and family
Bose was born in Kantakhali village at Boro Baishdia, an island in the Bay of Bengal. She went to Barisal to finish her matriculation exam. At 16, she married Emadullah, the general secretary of East Pakistan Jubo League. Emadullah died from chickenpox in a year while she was pregnant. After the birth of her first child Jasim, she took a job as a hostel super at a school. She started being a political activist when she got involved with her late husband's closest friend, Swadesh Bose whom she later married in 1963. The couple went to Cambridge, England as Swadesh won a scholarship for his Ph.D. at Cambridge University. In 1967 they settled in Karachi. They moved to Dhaka around the liberation war. She gave birth to two daughters, Mini and Anita. After the war ended, they went to Oxford, England and from there to Washington, United States where Swadesh got a job with the World Bank. Bose completed her master's degree and began her career as a social worker with a Catholic Charity Refugee Program.
In 2000, Bose and her daughter Monica Jahan Bose founded Samhati.
Awards
- Ananya Top Ten Women (2005)
- Ananya Literature Award (2010)
- Bangla Academy Literary Award (2016)
Works
- Agunmukhar Meye