Manzur-e-Mawla, a poet and former director general of Bangla Academy, died of deadly coronavirus at a hospital in Dhaka on Sunday. He was 80.
He breathed his last at United Hospital around 11 am while underwent treatment there.
Bangla Academy's public relations department confirmed.
On December 5, Manzur was admitted to the hospital after he was diagnosed with the virus.
bdnews24.com adds: He had served as secretary at different government ministries. He became the director general of Bangla Academy in the early 1980s.
‘Amar Ekushey Boi Mela,’ the longest running book festival in the world, was launched during his three-year tenure at the academy.
In addition to renovating the historic Burdwan building, organising the first national folklore workshop, giving fellowships to folklorists like Aroj Ali Matubbar and Khoda Baksh Sai, Mawla was instrumental in publishing books on the history of Bangla literature, Davidson's Medicine and Anisuzzaman's old Bangla prose.
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