Roktakto Bangla
Roktakto Bangla
Anisuzzaman (ed.) · 1971
Kolkata, 1971; the book that began the house
In 1971 Chittaranjan Saha (1927-2007) was a Dhaka publisher of notebooks and textbooks under the name Punthighar. When the Pakistani army burned his office in Farashganj, he went to Kolkata by way of Agartala, gathered refugee writers and published Roktakto Bangla, an anthology edited by Anisuzzaman. That book began Muktadhara, which issued about thirty-two books by exiled Bangladeshi writers during the war.
In February 1972, during a week of language-movement events at the Bangla Academy, Saha spread a piece of sackcloth under a tree in front of Burdwan House and set out those books for sale. Other publishers joined him in later years, and in 1978 the Academy made it the official Ekushey Boi Mela.
Muktadhara was known for care: a manuscript went to a panel of readers before it was accepted. It published Ahmed Sofa, Selina Hossain, Nirmalendu Goon and Shahidul Zahir's first book, Paraphar (1985). Saha received the Ekushey Padak in 2005. The house is now run by Jawhar Lal Saha.
Its books are published in Dhaka. Ask the desk, and we will tell you what we can find.
