Feminism in literature/ Taslima Nasrin

"If I disclose my destination my security will be compromised. My face has now become recognizable and I could be target of religious fundamentalists". That was her last sentence to the press before hiding in Stockholm protected by the Swedish government on March 18th 2008. Born in August 1962 in Mymensingh, Bangladesh, Taslima Nasrin studied Medicine and started her career as a gynecologist where she routinely examined young girls who had been raped. This and other incidents made her switch to writing where she is now considered one of the most controversial female writers, mainly for her strong attack religions in general and Islam in particular. She is also considered as one of the strongest and most famous feminist figures world wide. Taslima's literary works started in 1986 with poetry collection. Her name started to draw attention when she started writing columns in the weekly magazine Khabarer Kagoj , where she started voicing out her anti-Islam thoughts and believes that caused controversy throughout Bangladesh. During this stage her feminist style began to develop. Her literary fame came with her short novel titled Lajja or shame, where through graphic description of the rape of a Hindu girl by a Muslim man, she thoroughly raised the issue of the marginalized Hindu community in Bangladesh. Later on, she rewrote the novella making it into a 200 pages novel. The government banned the book and all her works and Islamic fundamentalists worldwide claimed her blood. In 1993 she was charged with blasphemy and after the trial she went into exile in many countries until she ended in Calcutta, India. And even there, she has received several death threats and the Islamic head priest of Calcutta announced offering money to anyone who would "blacken" Taslima's face, a ritual carried out in India in order to publicly humiliate someone. During her course of life, Taslima has received public criticism and has been regarded as an attention seeker, a person with sinister motives, a Jewish spy and she has been physically attacked several times. Growing public hatred from the Muslim community in India that was manifested into violence and even reached the point of causing a political crisis between the two countries made her life in India practically impossible that she had to escape to Europe a month ago. "Nature says women are human beings, men have made religions to deny it. Nature says women are human beings, men cry out NO!" Taslima's feminist believes are focused around the criticism of Islam and how it views women where her autobiographical novels revolve around the oppression of women in Islam. Her works include 12 poetry collections, 4 essay collections, 7 novels and 7 autobiographical works. Hated and fought against by most of the Muslim world, Taslima has many supporters world wide, her novels are widely spread and translated into many languages, and she received several awards from Europe and USA that was crowned with the Simone de Beauvoir feminist award in 2008.