From Wikipedia[link text]
Humayun Ahmed (Bengali: হুমায়ূন আহমেদ; 13 November 1948 – 19 July 2012) was a Bangladeshi author, dramatist, screenwriter, playwright and filmmaker.[4] Ahmed emerged in the Bengali literary world in the early 1970s. According to Times of India,[5] largest circulation among all English-language newspapers in the world, "Humayun was a custodian of the Bangladeshi literary culture whose contribution single-handedly shifted the capital of Bengali literature from Kolkata to Dhaka without any war or revolution[5] ". His breakthrough occurred with the publication of his first novel, Nondito Noroké in 1972.[6] He was a former professor of Chemistry at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh.
As a writer, Ahmed often displayed a fascination for creating stories around supernatural events; his style was characterized as magic realism.[7] He is regarded as the most popular writer in the Bengali language for a century [8] and according to many, he was even more popular than Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay.[9]
As of February 2004, Ahmed continued to top the best sellers list of Bangla Academy (Bangladesh) book fair, a feat that had been maintained over the previous two decades.[10]
In 2012 he was appointed as a special adviser to the Bangladesh Mission in the United Nations.[11]