Fahmida Azim, an illustrator and author of Bangladeshi origin, has recently won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize.
Originally from Bangladesh, Fahmida now lives in Washington, US.
Fahmida is only the second person born in Bangladesh to have won the Pulitzer Prize, which is considered to be the most prestigious award in journalism and publishing.
Mohammad Ponir Hossain won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography as part of Reuters' photography staff for his pictures of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
Fahmida, alongside her team members Anthony Del Col, Josh Adams and Walt Hickey of Insider in New York, got the honour in May for an illustrated report titled "How I Escaped a Chinese Internment Camp", which had been published by the outlet on December 28 last year.
The Pulitzer website says the team got nominated for the award for using graphic reportage and the comics medium to tell a powerful yet intimate story of the Chinese oppression of the Uighurs, making the issue accessible to a wider public.
Fahmida’s work centres on themes of identity, culture and autonomy.
Her art has been seen in The New York Times, NPR, Glamour, Scientific American, The Intercept, Vice and more.
She has illustrated a number of books including her own stereotype-shattering project Muslim Women Are Everything (HarperDesign, 2020). She enjoys drawing real people living extraordinary lives, fictional people living beautifully ordinary lives and food, according to her short bio on the Pulitzer website.
She also won the Golden Kite award for the book illustration of "Samira Surf" earlier this year.
She is currently working on her debut solo graphic novel, “Mega Megha”, for Scholastics Graphix.