Original title নারী Publication date 1992 Originally published 1992 Page count 408 (third edition) | Cover artist Uttam Sen Genre Criticism Subject Woman | |
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Naree, (Bengali: নারী Nāree "Woman") is a scholarly 1992 book, written by Humayun Azad in Bangladesh. Little feminist writing in the Bengali language had been available before it appeared. The book was considered incendiary, and was banned on 19 November 1995, by the government of Bangladesh. Five years later, though, in 2000, the ban was lifted, following a legal battle that Azad won. The High Court of Bangladesh decided that the prohibition is invalid.
Summary
The book in Bengali is a feminist analysis of women's status and condition in civilizations created by men. This is the first comprehensive discussion in Bengali about feminism and the difficulties Bengali women face in daily life. The radicalism inherent in the work was enough for many to think back on The Second Sex written by western feminist Simone de Beauvoir. In the work, Azad takes readers on a journey through the broad swathes of experience feminist writers in South Asia have gone through in their writings. Azad is critical of acclaimed figures, notably Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam, for what he considers their anti-feminist perceptions of life.
Azad analytically compiles the feminist ideas of the west, which underlie the feminist contributions of the subcontinent's socio-political reformers.