Shamsuzzaman Khan is a leading folklorist of South Asia. Institutionally he began his career as a folklorist in 1981 when, as the Director of the Department of Folklore at Bangla Academy, he discovered the vast richness of folklore in Bangladesh. Soon he realized that the collections so far accumulated from all parts of the country, though incredible and fascinating as texts, are mostly collected out of context. This realization changed his life in a dramatic way, for folklore got a new lease of life in Bangladesh under his leadership. Organizing three national folklore workshops in the 1980s with participation of leading folkorists of the world as instructors, he sophisticated folkloristic study and brought it into the international circle of development and debate in Bangladesh. He has now become the pioneer of contextual and innovative folklore scholarship in Bangladesh. In his current role as the Director General of Bangla Academy Shamsuzzaman Khan has been very diligently and skillfully creating new generations of folklorists. He has instilled in them the new concepts of folklore research and fieldwork.
