One of the things that the Dhaka Lit Fest has consciously tried to do over the past decade or so is to create a platform for female authors and novelists. Day 1 of DLF included a panel called ‘Secret Histories' which featured Esther Freud, Sarvat Hasin, and Iffat Nawaz. The discussion, held out on the lawn, was moderated by Nigerian born Bangladeshi American writer and photographer Abeer Hoque.
The moderator invited the panelists to begin with readings from their recent works. Iffat Nawaz read the opening of her debut novel Shurjo's Clan, which blends magical realism with personal history to tell the story of a girl named Shurjomukhi, who was living under the shadows of the Liberation War. Sarvat Hasin read from her award-winning novel The Giant Dark, a gender-bent retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Esther Freud read from her latest novel I Couldn't Love You More, a multi-generational novel about love, loss and motherhood.
Abeer Hoque deftly steered the conversations to cover issues of theme, craft, and, as a nod to the title of the panel, the fact that women's stories are often ‘secret' stories because they don't get much attention. Iffat Nawaz talked about the generations born after the events of the 1971 Liberation War, and their relationship to the stories of the war they missed, about trauma and healing. “Love is the engine of the story, magical realism is the vehicle” she said, prompting Sarwat Hasin to share about how an old Greek myth provided a context for her to explore some personal and contemporary themes and issues. Esther Freud connected it to stories of ‘mother and baby homes' in Ireland – institutions run by Catholic nuns where unwed mothers went to deliver their children, and the stigma attached to these homes.
The panel ended with a Q&A session, where the panelist answered questions about writers block and the ethical dilemma of secrets that may not be theirs to share.
