Stand by Humanity
Writing for him was a way of communicating with his private self. His short stories have an urban setting, and deal with the problems of isolation and loneliness that often lead to a rejection of the material world around us. The stories are about young people who endure a life of stress that results in frictions. Sex and drinking bring momentary relief, but Munawar searches for more enduring solutions. These solutions are offered, unsurprisingly, by his poems. Professor Syed Manzoorul Islam
Munawar Sarker, whom his family and friends called Anik, chose to write short stories and poems in English, perhaps because as an expatriate living in Australia he connected more immediately to an English speaking audience. He didn’t have the time to publish them though, or -- which was more probable – he was waiting for a more substantial output before venturing into print. But the body of work he has left behind deserves to be read for its achingly real depiction of life lived by the young people of his generation on the one hand, and, on the other, its projection of a world which is wonderfully alive. The realist in him is often at odds with the romantic one, but the view of life they present in the end is a superbly balanced one: light coexists with darkness, hope gives despair a second chance. Professor Syed Manzoorul Islam