BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / Let the queen rest in peace
23 October 2025, 14:55 PM
Book Review: Nonfiction / Charting the south’s path
22 October 2025, 18:00 PM
FICTION BOOK REVIEW: Fragments of memory and regret
22 October 2025, 18:00 PM
ESSAY / Leonard Cohen: Verses of mercy and turmoil
22 October 2025, 13:45 PM
THE SHELF / 3 Partition stories for young readers
21 October 2025, 13:45 PM
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / A bit of Fry & Homer
18 October 2025, 11:15 AM
Fiction / Free at last
17 October 2025, 18:58 PM
REFLECTIONS / Autumnal offerings for seasonal readers
17 October 2025, 18:58 PM
THE SHELF / 5 books to rescue you from brainrot
17 October 2025, 14:45 PM
Within the narrative folds of ‘Amar Dekha Rajnitir Ponchash Bochhor’ by Abul Mansur Ahmad
Amar Dekha Rajnitir Ponchash Bochhor unfolds a very complex process of how the people create cultures, how cultures create political orders, how orders lead to the formation of political parties, how these parties engage with political activities, and how this in turn shapes the central powers in a state.
7 September 2022, 18:00 PM
South Asia Speaks creative writing mentorship open for applications
The free, year-long fellowship for creative writers from South Asia, is accepting applications until September 30, 2022.
7 September 2022, 07:35 AM
Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2023 open for submissions
Free to enter and open to any citizen, aged 18 and over, of a Commonwealth country, the prize accepts short story entries written in English and translated to English, as well as stories written in Bangla, Chinese, French, Greek, Kiswahili, Malay, Portuguese, Samoan, Tamil and Turkish languages.
5 September 2022, 13:32 PM
‘I enjoy being alone’: Helal Hafiz
Helal Hafiz has been suffering from glaucoma for a long time, alongside complications with his kidney, diabetes and nerve complications.
5 September 2022, 10:23 AM
‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’—One series to fail them all?
What point is Lord of the Rings making in 2022? That people are racist and wage wars? The original trilogy, from two decades ago, was making that same point.
4 September 2022, 08:01 AM
Why ‘Hawa’ reminded me of Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’
The song “Shada Shada Kala Kala” seems almost like a visual rendition of “the merry minstrelsy” that breaks out in front of the bride as red as a rose.
2 September 2022, 10:25 AM
No country for honest men in Shahidul Zahir’s “Woodcutter and Crows”
Zahir uses crows as a symbol of magic realism, as found in local folklore, where animals serve as omens of luck both good and bad. The crows seem to bring bad luck to the couple, and wherever they go, the birds follow.
1 September 2022, 07:50 AM
Bleak realities in the shadow of China’s rise
In May 2022, Joanna Chiu won the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for her debut nonfiction book, China Unbound: A New World Disorder (Hurst, November 2021).
31 August 2022, 18:00 PM
No country for honest men in Shahidul Zahir’s “Woodcutter and Crows”
Prolific writer, novelist, and pioneer of postmodern fiction in Bangla literature, Shahidul Zahir, is known for the unique practice of magic realism in his works.
31 August 2022, 18:00 PM
The dangerous game of Marlon James—Can genre fiction be great literature?
James seems to be saying to the establishment, to the same generous folks who once gave him the Booker and propelled him to the stratosphere: Go ahead and say this is not literature, I dare you.
31 August 2022, 18:00 PM
Writer becomes bestseller after his own employer buys copies worth 9 crore
Chulbul, who has written 29 books of poetry in his career spanning 9 months, characterises his style as introspective, post-modernist neo-absurdism.
30 August 2022, 12:14 PM
‘Beshya O Bidhushir Golpo’ questions a gender-biassed society
The book contains important research on the type of language used by mainstream media in reporting news of rape, torture, and abuse of women.
28 August 2022, 10:54 AM
Rage is not singular for immigrants in Sabaa Tahir's novel
“What’s the word for when someone drinks so much, they are ruining your best friend’s life? Or the word for a man so vengeful about his own past that he wants to destroy your future? What’s the word for a woman who was sick for months, but refused to go to the doctor until it was too late?"
27 August 2022, 07:09 AM
'Celebrating Relationships' is a cookbook for a cause
Every recipe is credited to the person it is inspired from and the country it is staple to. The method of preparation of the dishes is detailed and very well explained, especially for amateur cooks.
27 August 2022, 06:39 AM
What to read if you liked watching ‘Hawa’
The film is a deep dive into Bangladesh’s rivers and the fishermen who hold up the country’s underbelly, along with the revelry, the mythologies that run across the folk culture of majhis and Bede communities.
27 August 2022, 05:57 AM
Two upcoming Pinocchio films—why does he still resonate?
Zemeckis' version will likely be a comforting trip into nostalgia and sentiment, an ode to the power of the human heart to do the right thing despite life's many temptations. At the same time, del Toro's will be a dark fairytale with troubling implications, examining how we puppets can learn to think for ourselves.
26 August 2022, 15:02 PM
What impact did the Partition have on Dhaka's book trade?
The impact of the 1947 Partition was felt in every aspect of Dhaka's printing and publishing business, and the book trade in the new provincial capital took a momentous turn. How did it impact the booksellers, printers, and the material being published?
26 August 2022, 13:07 PM
Ottessa Moshfegh’s ‘Lapvona’: A fairy tale for realists
Lapvona has paupers becoming princes, severe environmental disruptions adding to the owe of the common folk, and the old lady acting as a witch and healer, who serves in the role of a fairy godmother, albeit with a modern touch.
25 August 2022, 13:00 PM
‘The danger in telling a single Partition story is that it completely erases the individual’
1947 was overtaken almost immediately by the language question, and the question of identity.
25 August 2022, 07:05 AM
What HBO’s ‘House of the Dragon’ promises to bring to the world of ‘A Song of Ice & Fire’
Viewers of House of the Dragon won’t find themselves in a similar predicament as the events surrounding the second Targaryen Civil War have already been documented in full in Fire & Blood (2018).
23 August 2022, 07:13 AM