Syed Manzoorul Islam

Syed Manzoorul Islam (18 January 1951 – 10 October 2025) was a Bangladeshi critic, writer, and a professor at the University of Dhaka. As a literary critic, he wrote criticism on writers including Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Sudhindranath Dutta, Samar Sen, and Shamsur Rahman. He became the president of PEN Bangladesh in January 2018.

Islam won Ekushey Padak in 2018 in the language and literature category. Earlier, he received a Bangla Academy Literary Award in 1996,

Literary writings Islam receives Shilpakala Padak from President Abdul Hamid in 2017. Islam used to write from his childhood. While reading in class six, he published his writing in a magazine, Shikkhok Samachar. During his university days as a student, his friend's father fell sick and died in pain. This emotionally affected Islam and led him to write his first story, "Bishal Mrittu" in 1973. In his stories, he usually incorporated his own experiences. He tried to live the life of his characters, seeing the world through their eyes and describing their pain and happiness. Of the surrealistic nature in his writing, he said that in his childhood he used to listen to fairy-tales in which surrealistic elements were an integral part and that gave his writing a similar texture. He believed that "the surreal is the flip side of reality - it is what gives meaning to our everydayness".