Ahmedur Chowdhury (Tutul)

Ahmedur Chowdhury, known as Tutul, is a publisher, writer, and editor from Bangladesh. In 1990, Chowdhury began publishing and editing Shuddhashar (Free Voice), a magazine that soon became a platform for young and unconventional writers in Bangladesh. Chowdhury opened his own publishing house in Dhaka in 2004 under the same name, where he primarily printed works of progressive Bangladeshi writers.

In 2013, the publishing house was awarded the Shaheed Munir Chowdhury Award for publishing the highest number of quality books in Bangladesh and is considered one of the most important publishing houses in the country. In October 2015, Chowdhury was a victim of a coordinated machete attack on publishers of secular authors. Chowdhury had received direct death threats from Islamists and was among the main targets of the attack. Despite these threats, Chowdhury continued to publish, including books written by Avijit Roy, who was murdered in February 2015.

Chowdhury currently lives in exile in Norway where he arrived in 2016 for an ICORN residency in Skien. He has been an invited guest speaker at several programs and universities, including the Oslo Freedom Forum in Oslo, Norway; the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva; Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala; Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina; Augsburg University in Minneapolis; and the University of Oslo. He has been a participant in the Salzburg Global Seminar and the PEN Belgium´s writers fellowship program. Chowdhury’s work and courage have been honored with several awards and recognitions, including Norwegian PEN´s Ossietzky Prize (2018), Prix Voltaire Shortlist Nominee (2018), International Freedom to Publish Award Finalist (2016),  American Publishers Association's Jeri Labor International Freedom to Publish Award (2016), and English PEN Pinter International Writer of Courage Award (2016).

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