Dhaka Diary: Teaching English Literature in Bangladesh

by Fakrul Alam

Teaching Literature . Oxford : Blackwell Publishing, 2003. 177 pp.

Nearly thirty years ago, when I first went into a classroom in the University of Dhaka to teach English literature I remember how terrified I was. I had spent a couple of days reading for the class and half of a sleepless night writing out the lecture itself. I think I had written out my lecture in its entirety—twenty pages at least! —and then memorized it. And yet once in the classroom I managed to blurt it out in about forty minutes, leaving me with ten minutes of sheer agony and embarrassment.