Rizia Rahman (1939-2019) was born in Calcutta, but her family moved to what was then East Pakistan after the Partition of India. She started writing at an early age and published her first collection of short stories, Agniswakshora, while studying at the University of Dhaka. Her novel Bong Theke Bangla (1978) traces the evolution of Bangladesh. Her other novels include Rakter Akshar (1978), about life in a brothel, and Shilay Shilay Agun (1980), about uprisings by Baloch nationalists during the late fifties in Pakistan. In 2016, her novel Rakter Akshar was translated into English as Letters of Blood and published by Bengal Lights. Her other collections of short stories include Dure Kothao and Nirbachita Galpa.