Three-day workshop on storytelling

Under UNESCO Dhaka’s Hooked on Peace project, a three-day residential workshop focused on
creative nonfiction was organised at the BRAC CDM, Savar. The goal of the workshop was to
equip young and enthusiastic storytellers from the Chakma and Tripura communities of the
Chittagong Hill Tracts with different storytelling tools and techniques so that they can promote
and preserve their rich cultural heritage through their own writing. Asia Foundation was the
implementing partner.
Anubad.net’s Rifat Munim conducted the workshop as the lead trainer. At the workshop, with
reference to James Baldwin, Joseph Mitchell, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, Sumana Roy, and Maria
Chaudhuri, among others, he elaborated on different techniques of nonfictional storytelling, from
memoir to longform journalism to narrative interview to feature writing to profile writing to
autobiography to personal essay to travelogue. Most importantly, he discussed each story
submitted by the participants in detail and suggested why and how they should either flesh out
more details or substantiate their representation with more interviews and research.