Thousands of people have gathered in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, to pay their last respects to the writer Humayun Ahmed, who died last week.
His body arrived in Dhaka from New York early on Monday and was taken to the city’s Central Shaheed Minar monument.
Political leaders, officials and fans thronged to get a last glimpse of the writer before his burial.
The best-selling author was known for his depiction of the tribulations of ordinary middle-class Bangladeshi life.
BBC Bengali editor Sabir Mustafa says he was idolised by an entire generation of young men and women who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s.
In his novels Ahmed created characters – eccentric, comic, loveable – to which young readers readily related.
He introduced a deadpan humour in his writing that was very rare in Bengali literature. He explored the ups and downs of urban life with a sharp eye for the funny side, our correspondent says.
He died of cancer aged 64 at Manhattan’s Bellevue Hospital in New York on Thursday night.
Source: BBC
