Sarah Anjum Bari

A designer and illustrator whose work focuses on human rights, feminism, and South Asian identity, Pakistani artist Shehzil Malik has just created an artwork based on Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain's novella Sultana's Dream (1905).

So many words have been used to describe this nation in the last 50 years. Started from a bottomless basket, and along the way we’ve been called resilient, passionate, corrupt, greedy, full of warmth.

The version of Bangladesh we received in Babu Bangladesh (2019) was astonishing.

Sand, water, memory—the grainy, elusive grace they share pervades the experiences making up Sri Lankan author Anuk Arudpragasam’s second novel, A Passage North (Hamish Hamilton, 2021), shortlisted for this year’s Booker Prize.

The SOP, in a way, is a conversation with the admissions committee.

In Susannah Clarke’s Piranesi, whose review rests atop this article, the narrator labels time not by calendar dates but by the things that happen to him—the birds who visit his wing of the world, the tides that come swinging or gently.

In Midnight's Borders (Westland Publications, 2021), author and photographer Suchitra Vijayan travels the 9,000 miles of India's borders to understand what Partition did to individual lives and communities, and how it continues to incite violence, displacement, prejudice, and trauma among those who live in the border regions.

It wasn’t until 2001 that a Bollywood film would unpack for me how friendship truly works—friendship that goes beyond the melodrama of a Sholay or a Kuch Kuch Hota Hain, that navigates the trickier terrains of conflict, miscommunication, and the clashing of irrational egos in everyday life. Farhan Akhtar’s Dil Chahta Hai (2001) turned 20 this year, but it remains a cult classic not only because it revolutionised storytelling in the Indian film industry of its time, earning a place in university syllabi on filmmaking, but also because it introduced a genre and way of thinking that was missing from Bollywood films until then.

Fifty years old this year, the country represented in 'Golden: Bangladesh at 50' (UPL, 2021) is haunted, still, by all that it has survived, and it takes a look at all that it continues to breed, ranging from the festering to the hopeful. And so it follows that the collection feels wonderfully young, even as it comprises some of the most experienced and eminent of our writers, from Neeman Sobhan and Lubna Marium to Arif Anwar, Shazia Omar, Nadeem Zaman, Sabrina Ahmad, and many more.

I think it started, at least for us kids of the ’90s, with the Harry Potter franchise.

At every step of her journey in the MasterChef kitchen—from her fried sardines with beetroot and blood orange to a date-nestled, ice cream infused paan and panta bhaat with aloo bhorta—Kishwar Chowdhury has talked about writing a cookbook for Bangladeshi recipes as her ultimate dream. In this episode of Star Book Talk, Daily Star Books editor Sarah Anjum Bari talks about food, books, and cookbooks with Kishwar Chowdhury.

From watching the judges taste her fried sardines with beetroot and blood orange to witnessing the triumph of a a date-nestled, ice cream infused paan and panta bhaat with aloo bhorta, the journey of Bangladeshi-Australian Chef Kishwar Chowdhury has been one of pride and inspiration to everyone watching.

In an episode of Star Book Talk aired live on Friday, July 9, author-anthropologist Tahmima Anam and DS Books Editor Sarah Anjum Bari discussed Anam’s latest novel, The Startup Wife (Penguin India, 2021). They discuss writing tactics, feminism in literature, and Anam’s influences on the path to becoming an award-winning author.

Earlier this week, in a break from work-related correspondence, I sent author Tahmima Anam a personal email. I told her I was writing to her “as a reader” this time, because after months of scarfing down books for the sole purpose of writing reviews, The Startup Wife (Penguin India, 2021) made me forget that I was reading it for work.

In a detour from all the genres and topics that we review on this page, this monthly column on short stories is a little treat to ourselves—a short and delicious reminder of what the simple act of storytelling can accomplish.

It was during the peak of the coronavirus crisis, amidst the punishing heat of June, that we geared up to launch Daily Star Books on this very day in 2020.

Nostalgia, yes, but also a degree of ambivalence.

In 1857, a wave of uprisings sparked through India in a bid to overthrow the British rulers. The Sepoy Mutiny was the first time Indian soldiers rose against the British East India Company in the face of corruption and unjust social reforms—including ruthless land taxes that unfairly penalised the working class.

“Kichudin jabot Dhakay cholchhe prochur gorom, abar eki shathe shaolar gondho chorano brishti hochhe.” The incessant heat and rainfall, the month of May, the lull of Eid holidays and the call of books, films, and music are just some of the elements that make Apurba Jahangir’s Footnotes (Subarna, 2021) a fitting read for this time of the year.

“Muktishongram-e ami jog diyechhilam bishuddho ekjon biplobi hishebe”.