highquality translations nevertheless i think it is important for bangladeshi writers to find their voices in english too only a small percentage of women writers in bangladesh write in english suggests iffat and hence it becomes all the more necessary to have translations bangladesh does not have enough translators at the last hay festival university of liberal arts launched a translation centre we need more such initiatives and training in translations today avers iffat according to the hay festival organisers four bangladeshi publishing houses would be launching english fiction and translations this year in addition to two english literary journals among the upcoming ones farah is delighted to inform that arunava sinhas translation of selina hossains novel mohinir biye mohinis wedding will be appearing in print in 2014 censorship and resistance from taslima nasreens exile to banning of books and censorship is it the death of resistance literature today both farah and iffat share thoughtprovoking perspectives where the former feels that creativity finds expression under oppression while the latter seems a little wary of equating all personal inner struggles to a larger historical context as long as injustice and inequality prevail resistance literature will live some of the best literature was produced in south africa during the apartheid years the biggest danger for writers is selfcensorship literature often reveals the conscience of a society and the writers that i admire most like the turkish novelist elif shafak speak their truths as they see fit despite the opposition they sometimes face argues farah for iffat who grew up in the united states of america where her writing career began before she recently moved back to bangladesh is worried to notice the rising culture of censorship in bangladesh living in a society where few are writing and being read finding a voice that works without restraint is a challenge quite often womens writing from countries like bangladesh tends to bring out very personal inner struggles or issues which may or may not be representative of a wider context one needs to remember the extent of showing biases too if you are throwing daggers at a specific group you may be hit back asserts iffatgetting a publisher finding a publisher is a rather difficult conquest for bangladeshi writers or so it seems in general it has been difficult for englishlanguage writers to get published in bangladesh the infrastructure to facilitate that is lacking apart from special editions of newspapers until recently there have been very few other options for us in terms of publishing incountry the internet has made it possible for writers to send submissions to publications in other countries another positive development has been the decision of the daily star the largestcirculation english daily to move into publishing says farah who is confident of a future where the search for a publisher would not be an ordeal for aspiring authors waiting to tell their storiesoriginally published on december 05 2013