‘Those 19 Years Can Never Be Brought Back’: Taslima Nasreen Speaks To News18 After Returning To Kolkata

Published 31 July 2026 · local

‘Those 19 Years Can Never Be Brought Back’: Taslima Nasreen Speaks To News18 After Returning To Kolkata Reported By, Edited By Last Updated: July 31

‘Those 19 Years Can Never Be Brought Back’: Taslima Nasreen Speaks To News18 After Returning To Kolkata Reported By, Edited By Last Updated: July 31, 2026, 17:30 IST "I still can’t believe it because I was forced to leave in 2007," Taslima Nasreen tells News18 Rapid Read Exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, in Kolkata, West Bengal, on Friday. (PTI) Exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen on Friday returned to Kolkata after nearly 19 years, describing the visit as an emotional homecoming to a city she still considers her own. Her arrival comes ahead of a literary event on Saturday that has acquired political resonance under West Bengal’s new BJP government. “I still can’t believe it because I was forced to leave in 2007," Nasreen said, as she spoke to News18. The author will make her first public appearance here at an anti-fundamentalism literary programme at Rabindra Sadan, where she is expected to recite poetry. Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari and renowned author Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay are among those expected to attend.

Though conceived as a literary gathering, the event has inevitably assumed political significance, coming months after the BJP formed the government in West Bengal and amid renewed debate over freedom of expression, secularism and the state’s approach towards religious sensitivities. Edited excerpts After 18 years, you’ve finally returned home. Didi, this is a huge moment for us. I still can’t believe it because I was forced to leave in 2007. I thought that, since this was a progressive city, I would one day be able to return. But as the years passed, I increasingly felt that I would never be able to come back. Osman Mallick spoke to the government and made the necessary arrangements. And it finally happened. Your heart was broken then. How do you feel now? What happened in Bangladesh is understandable in the sense that many fundamentalists there demanded that I be hanged. But fundamentalists alone cannot force someone out unless the government wants it. The same was true here.

Had the government wanted, I could have stayed. In the end, I have returned. I cannot return to one Bengal (Bangladesh), but I have been able to return to the other Bengal (West Bengal). That feels good. How does this change feel? It has been about 19 years, I think. I am grateful to the Government of West Bengal. ‘Fera’ (Return) is one of your works. ‘Fera’ is a novel that I wrote." What would you say about your poem ‘Prashna’ (‘Question’)? Has it now been answered? Yes. When I was forced to leave, I wrote a poem while I was in Delhi. I had pledged to donate my body after my death. In that poem I asked, ‘My beloved Kolkata, will you accept me when I die?’ I have now received my answer. I have been able to return while I am still alive. You had to leave your cat behind, which was very painful. What would you like to say to Kolkata now?