Where does a story end, and a lie begin?
Through its 300 pages, Kuang exposes the performative nature of anti-racism in publishing: showcasing the boxes that people of colour get put in and how difficult it is for them to be heard.
13 July 2023, 06:57 AM
To trace back a tapestry of trauma: Partition inherited
Perhaps the book's best aspect is how it allows space for the stories of those who perpetrated violence during Partition.
10 August 2022, 18:00 PM
Shelley Parker-Chan’s 'She Who Became The Sun': A song of identity and fate
Identity is mercurial: it shifts and morphs into a new being at the change of a breeze. That change is glacial, and often happens on its own volition; but one can also grasp a new identity, hold it tight till it engulfs the old, and thereby change the trajectory of their life completely.
22 September 2021, 18:00 PM
Susanna Clarke's 'Piranesi': How real is the world we imagine?
In the 1700s, there lived an Italian artist, architect, and archaeologist who saw in the world far more than what was in it. Giovanni Battista Piranesi captured his world, among other things, through prints: the most famous of which are the Views, an imitation of the classical remains of Rome, and the imaginary renditions of the Prisons.
8 September 2021, 18:00 PM
Anjali Enjeti's 'The Parted Earth': Love in the time of Partition
Partition holds a strange place in our memories. For Bangladeshis, it may be far overshadowed by the more recent memory of the Liberation War, but across the Radcliffe line, it is recalled in families as a scar to forget, and in film as a reason to remember and to hate.
18 August 2021, 18:00 PM
‘Shadow and Bone’: Fantasy adaptation done right
With the demise of Game of Thrones, Netflix seems best poised to offer a replacement—with The Witcher gearing for a second season and now
5 May 2021, 18:00 PM
Prelude to a national disintegration
After half a century from where we began, Daily Star Books will spend all of this year—the 50th year of Bangladesh—revisiting, celebrating, and analyzing some of the books that played pivotal roles in documenting the Liberation War of 1971 and the birth of this nation.
24 February 2021, 18:00 PM
JK Rowling’s Disappointing Cry for Relevance
There are two kinds of children’s stories: those which you dust off as an adult and find yourself discovering new depths to upon revisiting, and those that you flick through and donate.
27 January 2021, 18:00 PM
Reading Re(ar)view: A Wrap on Reading Challenges and Recording Stats
As the final pages of 2020 flick away, a lot of us find ourselves cracking open our diaries, or signing into our reading apps to log in the last few books of the year.
30 December 2020, 18:00 PM
To stitch a tapestry of trauma: Material memories of the Partition of India
A good book stays with a reader long after they’ve read the last word and placed it back on the shelf. It leaves an impression on the mind, whether because the action was exhilarating, the characters raw and real, or because reading it felt like coming back to a home you never knew you had.
12 August 2020, 18:00 PM
Technicolour Mughals: Ira Mukhoty brings Akbar to life
Humans are a storytelling species. Yet history, which is but the stories of yesteryears, is taught like a chain of facts and dates.
29 July 2020, 18:00 PM