Taslima Nasrin

Taslima Nasrin (born 25 August 1962) is a Bangladeshi-Swedish writer, physician, feminist, secular humanist, and activist. She is known for her writing on women's oppression and criticism of religion; some of her books are banned in Bangladesh. She has also been blacklisted and banished from the Bengal region, both from Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. She gained global attention by the beginning of 1990s owing to her essays and novels with feminist views and criticism of what she characterizes as all "misogynistic" religions. Nasrin has been living in exile since 1994, with multiple fatwas calling for her death. After living more than a decade in Europe and the United States, she moved to India in 2004, but was banished from the country in 2008, although she has been staying in India on a resident permit long-term, multiple-entry or 'X' visa since 2004. She now lives in New Delhi, India. Nasrin was the daughter of Dr. Rajab Ali and Edul Ara, who were from a Bengali Muslim of Mymensingh. Her father was a physician, and a professor of Medical Jurisprudence in Mymensingh Medical College, also at Sir Salimullah Medical College, Dhaka and Dhaka Medical College. After high school in 1976 (SSC) and higher secondary studies in college (HSC) in 1978, she studied medicine at the Mymensingh Medical College, an affiliated medical college of the University of Dhaka and graduated in 1984 with an MBBS degree. In college, she wrote and edited a poetry journal called Shenjuti. After graduation, she worked at a family planning clinic in Mymensingh, then practised at the gynaecology department of Mitford hospital and at the anaesthesia department of Dhaka Medical College hospital. While she studied and practised medicine, she saw girls who had been raped; she also heard women cry out in despair in the delivery room if their baby was a girl. She was born into a Muslim family; however, she became an atheist over time. In the course of writing she took a feminist approach.