Tahmima Anam

Tahmima Anam (Bengali: তাহমিমা আনাম; born 8 October 1975) is a British Bangladeshi writer, novelist and columnist. Her first novel, A Golden Age, was published by John Murray in 2007 and was the Best First Book winner of the 2008 Commonwealth Writers' Prize. In 2013 she was included in the Granta list of one of the best young writers. Her follow-up novel The Good Muslim was nominated for the 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize.

Anam's father Mahfuz Anam was a freedom fighter in Bangladesh Liberation War. Her mother Shaheen and grandfather Abul Mansur Ahmed, a writer and activist, too had been deeply involved in the war.

Anam was born in 8 October 1975 in Dhaka, Bangladesh, four year after the country's independence. She remain there until her age was two. Then the family moved to Paris, New York and Thailand due to her father’s job with UNESCO. During her childhood her parent had made her introduce to Bengali culture. They used to speak Bangla at home and spoke often about the war and what it mean to theaily Star, largest circulating English-language newspaper in Bangladesh.

At the age of 17, she won a scholarship for Mount Holyoke College. She graduated from there in 1997.

She earned a PhD in Anthropology from Harvard University in 2005, for her thesis "Fixing the Past: War, Violence, and Habitations of Memory in Post-Independence Bangladesh." In 2005.

Later, she completed her MA in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, University of London.

In March 2007, Anam's first novel was published by John Murray. She picked the Bangladesh Liberation War as her first subject to write the novel A Golden Age. Anam was inspired by her parents who were freedom fighters during the war.^[11] Tahmima also researched the war which covered the ceMatir Moina (The Clay Bird) which reflects the happenings during that war.

ntral part of her post graduation. For the benefit of her research, she stayed in Bangladesh for two years and interviewed hundreds of war fighters. She also worked on the set of Tareque and Catherine Masud's critically acclaimed film

In 2011, her second novel The Good Muslim a sequel to A Golden Age was published. It was nominated for the 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize longlist.

In 2015, Her stort-story Garments was published. The story has been inspired from Rana plaza building collapse. It won O. Henry Award and also been shortlisted for BBC National Short Story Award. At the same year, she became a judge for The Man Booker International Prize 2016.

In 2016, her novel The Bones of Grace published under Harper Collins.

In 2017, she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Anam's op-ed column has published in New York Times, The Guardian and in New Statesman. In her column, Anam has written about Bangladesh and its growing problem.

Anam's first husband was a Bangladeshi marketing executive. In 2010, Anam married an American inventor, Roland O. Lamb, whom she met at Harvard University.The couple have a son, named Rumi.She has resided in Kilburn, London for the last decade.

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