The principle question here is this: Why are intellectuals killed? The intellectual killings that took place on 14th December 1971 – were the first of its kind? Or had there not been any similar incident taking place thereafter? I am not aware of all the events that had occurred in history. Besides, not all events are worth a mention either. But more or less, everyone who has some institutional knowledge of this is aware of one or two intellectuals who had been treated as such. And if the intellectual killings in our nation stop, then we might have to come to the conclusion that no intellectual is born anymore. Or perhaps we’ve somehow attained utopia. Either one of the two is true, and the former being true is a reason why the civil society of our time cannot enjoy the independence and freedom we are owed. Or perhaps they are being martyred every second and we aren’t aware of it, for their preoccupations obstruct their recognition as intellectual. [Read the rest...] “The True Nature of the Intellectual Killings | Mozid Mahmud”

Jack London had written his The Scarlet Plague thirty-three years before Camus’s famous The Plague. One could call it an excellent example of proto-post apocalyptic fiction. It recounts the story of the “Red Death” in America, which has depopulated most of the region, following the lives of people in San Francisco sixty years after the plague. [Read the rest...] “A plague on all our houses: Pandemics and plagues in literature | Mozid Mahmud”