Photo courtesy of the Weissman Center for Leadership.
Tahmima Anam ’97 spoke at Mount Holyoke.
By Sophie Frank ʼ26
Staff Writer
On one of the warmest days in March, Mount Holyoke students and professors from many of the Five Colleges gathered in Hooker Auditorium for a conversation with Tahmima Anam, an award-winning author, New York Times columnist and Mount Holyoke alum from the class of 1997.
Anam described her visit as “incredibly moving and meaningful,” noting that the date of the event marked her return to Mount Holyoke exactly 30 years after her arrival in 1993.
The event was organized by the Weissman Center for Leadership in collaboration with Critical Social Thought, the Office of The President and the Five Colleges. Cindie Huerta ʼ25, a Weissman fellow, told Mount Holyoke News that events like this “allow for people to see the potential beyond Mount Holyoke.”
Anam began the talk by describing her journey to becoming an author. She included stories of her Bangladeshi upbringing and her journey to Mount Holyoke. When she first arrived at the school, she was greeted at the airport by an international student welcoming committee. She described being drawn into the community immediately.
“You have this moment of intense connection when you’re here while you’re being pushed to be extraordinary,” she explained during the Launching Leadership conversation.
“This community is a really special place, and … going through [your] journey with this community is a real gift,” Anam said to Mount Holyoke News. “I hope [it] will be something that guides you through and gives you the strength to tackle whatever it is out in the world that you need to tackle.”
Anam, who majored in anthropology, said that up until meeting Mount Holyoke professors who had high standards but believed in her, she had never taken herself seriously. Anam had a secret wish to become a novelist and though she didn’t pursue her dream until after graduation, she says college and graduate school were great training for her writing. During the Launching Leadership talk she explained the connection between studying anthropology and her writing: “Anthropology is the study of otherness. Writing requires a deep understanding of otherness. The experience of otherness is fundamental to my being.”
During her Ph.D. research in anthropology at Harvard, Anam focused on the experiences of women during the war of independence in Bangladesh. She expected to hear stories about the war, but instead, the women talked about falling in love and their families, because it was a time when many social norms were cast aside. She learned from this that she was not interested in the “grandness of war,” but in the small, transformative moments between people.
Her anthropological research inspired the Bengal Trilogy. The books chronicle three generations of women in the same family throughout the history of Bangladesh, from the war of independence to the present day. The books were written from her heart for her family and for the country whose “rich, intellectual history” was revealed to her by a Mount Holyoke professor. “It was really the novel I had to write first,” she told Mount Holyoke Interim President Beverly Daniel Tatum.
Her latest book, “The Startup Wife,” is a big departure from her previous work in the Bengal Trilogy, though it is also based on life experiences — in this case, her job at a tech startup founded by her husband. While observing office culture and racism and sexism in tech, she began to speculate about how she would be treated if she was the founder of the company. The book wound up being a satirical social commentary about a married couple that works together on a sensational new app. Though the wife is the one who created it, the husband receives the praise and becomes an almost messiah-like figure.
The book also delves into her complex relationship with technology under capitalism, but she fondly recalls seeing young people in Bangladesh who believe they can change the world thanks to the interconnectedness technology allows. Ultimately, she believes “[technology] cannot be stopped, it can only be understood.”
In response to a student asking how to tell stories the world often ignores, Anam replied, “Your story is your power. Nobody else has that story.” Anam believes in the power of stories, of young people and of the Mount Holyoke community.