Golponama: Bangladesh’s 1st Queer Story Collective
Donation protected
"Mondro" has taken an initiative to publish a queer fiction collection of stories which are written by Bangladeshi Queer writers. This Queer fiction stories collective is important because it documents queer histories that might disappear if not collected and properly archived. These stories also speak about the lived realities of queer people that cannot be expressed through non-fiction. This collective will showcase the Queer people’s experiences with society, class, politics, religion, culture from different parts of the country.
In 2010, even though widespread use of the internet was limited, Facebook was slowly emerging as a site for social networking. A big chunk of the community members created secondary and fake accounts with different names and photos to ensure their privacy and interact with other Queer community members. At that time, many pages and groups were created to practice literature-based creativity. Most of the pages were maintained by Queer writers and they used to post poems, narratives, and especially fiction stories. Since then approximately one thousand stories have been produced by Queer writers that couldn’t be published online or in books/magazines/newspapers publicly under their real names for security reasons. Even though Queer writers never stopped expressing themselves, the impossibility to do it publicly was always a struggle. Not being represented in society has also led to a scarcity of platforms for self-expression for Queer writers. This is becoming more and more challenging with staunch state digital surveillance
Sadly, in 2016, the killing of two prominent activists Xulhaz Mannan and Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy forced the community members to go underground even more which stopped the flow of artistic creativity. The scattered community is still struggling to overcome the trauma. Many social media pages were deleted, many writers stopped their activities. A new group of people is now trying to revive the queer literature culture, but the struggle is still there.
Although Mondro has taken the initiative to archive all of the creations of Bangladeshi Queer people, Mondro wants to publish a collection of stories to celebrate Queer creations which are not represented in other mainstream published books. Mondro will be a publication of its kind - queer writers and collaborators will lead the process. We are attempting to produce modern queer literature as there is none. The publication will be the first Queer Story collective of Bangladesh.
Process:
Mondro will recruit a project manager, and Queer writers to execute the project. The team will contact the potential contributors individually and ask them to submit stories. After the deadline, the team will select a maximum of 30 stories for the book. Later with the help of a layout designer, cover designer, illustrators, proof-reader, and publisher - the book will get published. For security purposes, we'll not publicize the project. Mondro needs around $2500 to complete the project in a safe and correct manner.
The donors can include their names in the Acknowledgement section of the book. We are hoping to publish the book by the end of February 2020.
About Mondro:
Mondro is a Bangladeshi non-profit, queer archivists-run, awareness-raising volunteer-based queer cultural organization, and the first-largest Queer archive. Mondro aims to contribute to Queer historical and ongoing gender and sexual diversity social movement by testifying to Queer existence and struggle in the region. Mondro was created with the intent to provide a safe space to preserve all queer creations, including art, literature, history, and science. Since its launch in November 2019, Mondro has achieved more than 1000 creations including stories, articles, images, videos, audio-files, poems, etc. The contents are mostly in Bengali, few English contents also can be found. Besides e-archiving, Mondro organized a gender-sexuality based theatre performance, launched a queer gender and sexuality-related e-magazine, arranged queer-story competitions, and conducted numerous small gatherings - both physically and virtually for cultural activities and awareness.
Mondro: https://mondro.org/
In 2010, even though widespread use of the internet was limited, Facebook was slowly emerging as a site for social networking. A big chunk of the community members created secondary and fake accounts with different names and photos to ensure their privacy and interact with other Queer community members. At that time, many pages and groups were created to practice literature-based creativity. Most of the pages were maintained by Queer writers and they used to post poems, narratives, and especially fiction stories. Since then approximately one thousand stories have been produced by Queer writers that couldn’t be published online or in books/magazines/newspapers publicly under their real names for security reasons. Even though Queer writers never stopped expressing themselves, the impossibility to do it publicly was always a struggle. Not being represented in society has also led to a scarcity of platforms for self-expression for Queer writers. This is becoming more and more challenging with staunch state digital surveillance
Sadly, in 2016, the killing of two prominent activists Xulhaz Mannan and Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy forced the community members to go underground even more which stopped the flow of artistic creativity. The scattered community is still struggling to overcome the trauma. Many social media pages were deleted, many writers stopped their activities. A new group of people is now trying to revive the queer literature culture, but the struggle is still there.
Although Mondro has taken the initiative to archive all of the creations of Bangladeshi Queer people, Mondro wants to publish a collection of stories to celebrate Queer creations which are not represented in other mainstream published books. Mondro will be a publication of its kind - queer writers and collaborators will lead the process. We are attempting to produce modern queer literature as there is none. The publication will be the first Queer Story collective of Bangladesh.
Process:
Mondro will recruit a project manager, and Queer writers to execute the project. The team will contact the potential contributors individually and ask them to submit stories. After the deadline, the team will select a maximum of 30 stories for the book. Later with the help of a layout designer, cover designer, illustrators, proof-reader, and publisher - the book will get published. For security purposes, we'll not publicize the project. Mondro needs around $2500 to complete the project in a safe and correct manner.
The donors can include their names in the Acknowledgement section of the book. We are hoping to publish the book by the end of February 2020.
About Mondro:
Mondro is a Bangladeshi non-profit, queer archivists-run, awareness-raising volunteer-based queer cultural organization, and the first-largest Queer archive. Mondro aims to contribute to Queer historical and ongoing gender and sexual diversity social movement by testifying to Queer existence and struggle in the region. Mondro was created with the intent to provide a safe space to preserve all queer creations, including art, literature, history, and science. Since its launch in November 2019, Mondro has achieved more than 1000 creations including stories, articles, images, videos, audio-files, poems, etc. The contents are mostly in Bengali, few English contents also can be found. Besides e-archiving, Mondro organized a gender-sexuality based theatre performance, launched a queer gender and sexuality-related e-magazine, arranged queer-story competitions, and conducted numerous small gatherings - both physically and virtually for cultural activities and awareness.
Mondro: https://mondro.org/
Organizer
Faisal Misha
Organizer
St Louis, MO
