Tahmima Anam's acceptance speech
Remarks by Tahmima Anam
Accepting 2008 the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Best First Book 
Franschhoek Literary Festival, South Africa
18 May 2008
When you come from a poor country like mine, you get used to feeling a little ashamed of yourself all the time. You get used to nodding when people express sympathy at your latest natural or man-made disaster. You get used to phrases like “least developed”.
But there is one thing that no amount of ill-fate can ever take away from me, and that is the dignity of being born in a free country. As a writer, I honor that freedom by remembering what is has cost, by acknowledging those for whom this freedom has been incomplete, and by commemorating those who gave their youths, their lives, and their loved ones so that I could be the proud citizen of an independent nation, no matter how flawed, no matter how imperfect. That is why I wrote A Golden Age.
I stand before you today as the first Bangladeshi recipient of this prize in its 22 year history. And the reason I am here is because my country has not only given me a home, it has not only given me citizenship, it has also given me an extraordinary story to tell. As you know, a writer is nothing without her story, and I inherited this gift from the survivors of the Bangladesh war. All I had to do was find a way to tell it as truthfully as I could.
I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the Commonwealth Foundation, The Macquarie Group Foundation, the Franschoek Literary Festival, and the organizers of what has been an intensely moving journey to South Africa. I thank the judges for their integrity and hard work. I am especially grateful to have been placed in the company of my fellow regional winners, all of whom have written books of great humanity, and with whom the seeds of lasting friendship have been sown. I owe thanks to my family, to my parents and especially my grandmother, whose war stories were the inspiration for the novel. And thanks to you all for being here.
