Syed Waliullah spent his childhood and youth in rural and suburban Bengal. After completing his BA from Ananda Mohan College, Mymensingh, he moved to Calcutta, where he started working at the ‘Statesman’. After the Partition, he moved to Dhaka and joined Radio Pakistan. He subsequently served in various posts at home, at Pakistan missions abroad, and, from 1967, at UNESCO in Paris. In 1971, he helped mobilize support for Bangladesh. However, he did not live to see an independent Bangladesh, passing away in Paris on October 10, 1971. Drawing on his diverse experiences, Waliullah wrote novels, short stories and plays. His first, and most famous, novel was ‘Lal Shalu’ (1948), translated by him into English as ‘Tree Without Roots’ (1967). His other two Bangla novels are ‘Chander Amabasya’ (1964) and ‘Kando Nadi Kando’ (1968). He also wrote a novel in English, ‘The Ugly Asian’, published posthumously in 2013. For his contribution to Bangla literature, Syed Waliullah received several awards: the PEN prize (1955), the Bangla Academy Literary Award for Novels (1961), and the Adamjee Prize (1965). He was awarded the Ekushey Padak posthumously in 1983.