Internationally acclaimed folklorist and Ekushey Padak winning writer Ashraf Siddiqui passed away at Apollo Hospital in Dhaka at 3:15am on Thursday. He was 93.
Ashraf Siddiqui, a secular humanist who enriched 20th century Bangla literature, had been critically ill for over a month, said a press release.
His body was buried at Banani Graveyard following a namaj-e-janaza after Juhr prayers held at Dhanmondi Shahi Eidgah Mosque.
He left behind three daughters and two sons to mourn his death.
Ashraf Siddiqui was a former director general of Bangla Academy, a position that he served for seven years. He won a number of prestigious awards including Ekushey Padak for literature in 1988, Bangla Academy Purashkar for children’s literature in 1964, the UNESCO Award, and Daud Literary Award for his book on folklore.
In the 1940s, Ashraf, emerged as a promising young poet. In a career spanning more than seven decades he composed around 500 poems, wrote a number of short stories, novels, and children’s literature and engaged in academic research on folklore of Bangladesh.
Ashraf Siddiqui wrote 75 books and numerous journal articles.
Set against the backdrop of the Bengal famine, his poem Taleb Master (1948) very quickly established him as a poet of the masses. Galir Dharer Chheleti augmented his literary reputation as a short story writer.
The national film award winning Dumurer Phool, directed by Subhash Dutta was based on this story.
Ashraf Siddiqui is greatly admired for his contribution preserving the oral Bengali folk culture by cataloguing the tales and riddles in the written form.
His books namely Lok Sahitya, Bengali Folklore, Our Folklore Our Heritage, Folkloric Bangladesh and Kingbadantir Bangla are primary text books of folklore researchers of South Asia.
