About the Book
Serialized in his column, the experiences of the author’s residence at Cambridge during the mid-sixties were first published in a national weekly. He had not kept a journal during that period and as such he had to depend chiefly on memory. A nostalgia of the ambience of this Stone House has naturally been the driving force as he kept writing the column week after week.
The author had chosen to become an undergraduate at Cambridge a few years before the birth of Bangladesh in the wake of the genocide committed by the Pakistani occupation army in 1971. But the movement for autonomy back home was gaining ground while he was staying at Cambridge. This he has narrated in appropriate contexts in the book.
When he joined Fitzwilliam College in the Michaelmas Term, 1964 the first few things he had to encounter is the cold, the loneliness and the cultural shock. The first Term over, he overcame all these and started to see in this medieval city its charm that held out for him its beauty, its heritage, its rich academic atmosphere and the particular strength of his own discipline, English literature. Led by persons like I A Richards, William Empson, F. R. Leavis this phase of critical theory in the 20th century came to be known as the Cambridge School of English Criticism. It makes him feel proud to think that he had been at least on the fringe of this phase of literary history. Listening to lectures by Empson and Leavis was for him an unforgettable experience.
The author lavishes particular care on his friends who lent him support and sensitized his personality with ideas and association. Visiting places on certain occasions unfolded before him the diversity of nature and men and the unity that does the bonding for a peaceful world with the past and present adding particular grace to that chemistry.
The author is particularly proud of his own College representing the new architecture in Cambridge. More so, because it has produced, a person like Lee Kwan Yew, the master builder of Singapore which he turned from a fishing village to the busiest financial hub of the First World. During the last 50 years or so, the College has made great strides and has emerged as one of the finest seats of learning in the world. The alumni have done excellently well in their respective areas of professional career. This book would give them a brief look at how the College and Cambridge as a whole stood at a tumultuous time of the last century.
First Edition: January 2016
Publisher: MetaKave Publications, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Cover Design: Dr. M. Rafiqul Alam
ISBN No: 978-984-34-0048-2
Pages: 171
Binding Type: Hard Cover
Price: US $10 / GBP £10 / EUR €10
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ORDER NOWAbout the Author
Born in 1939, Professor M Harunur Rashid graduated from the University of Dhaka in 1961 and later proceeded to Cambridge to do the English Tripos as an undergraduate in 1964 on a government scholarship. On his return in 1966 he served government colleges for a few years and became the youngest member of the Senior Education Service in 1970. After the Liberation War, he joined Chittagong University as an associate professor. He became a professor of English in 1981. He moved to Jahangirnagar University in 1985 and became the chairman of the department in 1987. After the restoration of democracy in Bangladesh, he was commissioned to become the Director General of Bangla Academy (the national academy of arts and letters) in 1991for a four-year term. He worked hard here for the promotion of Bangla language and literature and his ability as an educational administrator was widely acclaimed.
Professor Rashid has chaired a few distinguished academic bodies at home and abroad. He was elected President of World University Service International, Geneva in 1984 for a period of two years. He was the third person to chair this body from the South Asian Sub-Continent, the other two being Dr. Zakir Husain of India and Dr. I. H Qureshi of Pakistan. He was elected President of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh in 1998 for a term of two years. Later he was appointed President of the Bangla Academy in 2007 for a two-year term.
His distinction as a teacher has endeared him to thousands of students in Bangladesh. Along with teaching he has done a considerable number of translations from English and French to Bangla which include authors like S. I . Hayakawa, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Charles Augustin Sainte Beuve, Andre Gide, Stephane Mallarme, and the Malaysian novelist Anwar Ridhwan. His recent English translations of Bangla poetry include All Praise be to Him (2012) and Selected Surrealist Poems (2014) by Abdul Mannan Syed, Behular Sari (2013) by Mohammad Nurul Huda and Story of Bones and other poems (2012) by Kamal Chowdhury.
His interest in Sufism led him to write a number of books on a Sufi saint, Syed Rashid Ahmed Jaunpuri (God be pleased with him). After his death in 2001 he has compiled his writings and has recently brought out a memorial volume called Syed Rashid Ahmed Jaunpuri Smarak Grantha (2013).
