Rokeya Lita

Education and early life

Lita was born on 12 August 1985, in the northern part of Bangladesh, Dinajpur. Her father was a government employee and transferred to Dhaka. So she spent her childhood in Dhaka city and completed primary education in Dhaka. After retirement of her father, their entire family settled in Dinajpur. So, she grew up in a mixed cultural environment, both rural and urban. Her secondary and higher secondary education were completed in Dinajpur. Again she came back to Dhaka for her higher studies. She obtained her honors and master's degree from the University of Dhaka. She received her second master's degree from the University of Liberal Arts of Bangladesh. Rokeya Lita is the youngest child of her parents among four daughters.

Career

Lita started her career at the fortnightly magazine Anondo Alo by Impress Telefilm Publications. She also worked in Tarunkontho by The Daily Ittefak, banglanews24.com and Independent Television for a long time. Moreover, she worked in the Bangladesh Sanglap project of BBC. She writes columns regularly in different English and Bengali newspapers. Lita's first novel is Shomokameeta (Homosexuality), which was published by Agamee Prokashoni in the Ekushey Book Fair 2015. Her first novel was very controversial, since the theme of the novel is a kind of taboo in a Muslim populated country like Bangladesh. The writer received a lot of threats from people of different groups. Her second novel Dumurer Phul (The Unseen Object) is published by Somoy Prokashon in Ekushey Book Fair 2016. In her second novel, the writer depicts the socio-political lives of indigenous people of different groups of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Though the political vulnerability of this area made some indigenous people protest against the writings of the novelist, the writer has brought out some unknown facts regarding traditional indigenous laws, their flaws and impacts on the indigenous women. She has published another novel named Purush (Men) by Shobdoshoilee prokashoni in the Ekushe Book Fair 2017. Currently, she is working on several projects, which include a novel on the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971.