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Nothing makes me cringe more than seeing people refer to the characters in The Henna Wars and me as "Indian."
I know when people see the term "Bengali," they want to default to Indian Bengali. Most people don& #39;t know very much about Bangladesh at all.
I know when people see the term "Bengali," they want to default to Indian Bengali. Most people don& #39;t know very much about Bangladesh at all.
That& #39;s part of the reason I& #39;m here, and why I& #39;ve written Nishat& #39;s story. South Asia is very, very diverse and I know that current South Asian authors are doing a brilliant job of showing the diversity of our cultures.
That also means that readers, both South Asian and non-South Asian have to receptive to the work that we& #39;re doing.
I especially speak about this because I grew up with people asking, "So Bangladesh is just India, right?" from non-Bangladeshis.
I especially speak about this because I grew up with people asking, "So Bangladesh is just India, right?" from non-Bangladeshis.
But from my family I heard the stories of our war of independence, our language movement, famine, devastation...we fought for our right to be Bangladesh, an independent country, and we& #39;re still fighting for it.
I know most readers don& #39;t mean harm when they refer to Nishat or me as Indian...but we& #39;re not Indian. I take every opportunity to speak about our Bangladeshi heritage. I am deliberate in it. Please, be deliberate in recognising our heritage too.
And here are some Bangladeshi books and authors you can support: https://twitter.com/adiba_j/status/1262037349216727040?s=20">https://twitter.com/adiba_j/s...
