Laili-Majnu
Laili-Majnu
Daulat Wazir Bahram Khan; ed. Ahmed Sharif · 1957
The Academy's first book
The Bangla Academy grew out of the language movement. Muhammad Shahidullah proposed a research body for Bengali in 1948, and the United Front promised one in 1954. The Academy opened on 3 December 1955 in Burdwan House, Dhaka, until then the official residence of the province's chief minister. Muhammad Enamul Haq became its first director in 1956.
Its publication division began in 1957, and its first book was the verse epic Laili-Majnu by Daulat Wazir Bahram Khan, edited by Ahmed Sharif. It has since issued more than five thousand books and journals: Shahidullah's dictionary of regional dialects (1965), English-Bengali (1993) and Bengali-English (1994) dictionaries, a biographical dictionary, folklore collections and translations.
The Academy's main office is still in Burdwan House. Every February it runs the Amar Ekushey Boi Mela, the country's largest book fair, in memory of the martyrs of the 1952 language movement.
Its books are published in Dhaka. Ask the desk, and we will tell you what we can find.
