"I am a crazy woman," stated Dr Niaz Zaman, at the inauguration of Sister Library IUB Campus Pink Shelf  on February 26. "In the past, wherever I travelled, I spent a lot of time in libraries. A library is not just a place for books, it is a happening place. And today I am glad that the Pink Shelf is a bright corner in the IUB library."

The very first campus Sister Library Pink Shelf opened at the Independent University Bangladesh on Wednesday, 26 February. The hot pink space within the campus library, endearingly nicknamed "Pookie Corner" by students, is an invitation to read more women.

Sister Library (Dhaka), curated by HerStory Foundation and Goethe-Institut, is a programme that celebrates female creativity and boosts visibility. They have been reading women in Bangladesh since 2020, and in Bombay where the library was founded by Aqui Thami, since 2017. The Pink Shelf aims to promote reading marginalised authors, inspire discourse, spread vital information and generate new ideas. 

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On making zines with Aqui Thami

At the event, the show of hands in response to who had read a woman in recent times, was very small. It did not come as a surprise—this is the case in most groups. Professor Razia Sultana Khan, drawing from decades of experience advocating for women's voices in literature, said "I would like to see the day when there is no more need for a Pink Shelf. Things are changing, books are changing. But today we still need it. There are so many women we just don't know, because all we do is teach white, dead, male writers."

Zareen Mahmud Hosein, Founder of HerStory Foundation, donated her copy of Kate Chopin's The Awakening to the shelf, a book that had been instrumental in her formative years and wished the Pink Shelf success. 

Dr Zaman, this year's recipient of the Ekushey Padak, guided the audience to use the Pink Shelf regardless of gender, "I will also say that a man can be a greater feminist than a woman. Because the creative mind is androgynous."

Jahanara Tariq, author, IUB alumni, lecturer at ULAB and editor of Littera magazine shared an excerpt from her essay "Reading Cixous" which inspects the power of close, critical reading. She invited students to engage with the shelf and add their own works to it. 

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Cultivating creativity at Sister Library’s zine-making workshop

The last hour of the event was dedicated to a zine-workshop. Students were invited to create pocket zine manifestos for the Pink Shelf, a form of idea crowd-sourcing to engage the students in the co-creation of the programming for the shelf.  Some of their hopes and dreams for the Pink Shelf included: resisting through learning, wanting this space to be for everyone, and the hope that it is not just a "Pink Shelf" but an entire Pink Library.

The IUB Campus Pink Shelf is open to all students, alumni and staff. The Goethe-institut Pink Shelf on Road 9, Dhanmondi, is open to all during operating hours.

Kazi Raidah Afia Nusaiba is a contributor and a student of IUB.