POETRY / Take me to a hibiscus field won’t you
13 December 2024, 18:00 PM
POETRY / Our Bangla
13 December 2024, 18:00 PM
THE SHELF / Pages for freedom: Book recommendations for Victory Day
13 December 2024, 18:00 PM
Alice Munro, Canadian Nobel Prize-winning author, dies at 92
14 May 2024, 17:26 PM
POETRY / Be a tree
15 March 2024, 18:00 PM
FICTION / The loss of essentiality
15 March 2024, 18:00 PM
POETRY / THE OTHER WAY ROUND
8 December 2023, 18:00 PM
POETRY / Soldier amidst the blood moon: An elegy
8 December 2023, 18:00 PM
ESSAY / Ludic space for Tagore’s fictive children
8 December 2023, 18:00 PM
POETRY / They raise their fists. Inside, I fall asleep to the sound of rain
1 December 2023, 18:00 PM
An Intimate yet Epic vision: SURALAKSHMI VILLA
In the state of seige that we are living in across the world, or, like myself, in an Italy emerging from the pandemic battlefield, a riveting book is our best means of being transported beyond our confined horizons.
10 July 2020, 18:00 PM
The Bat, the Pigeon and the Doctor
“Mamaa, mama re! Would you like to munch on my toast and have a sip from my sugary milk tea?”
3 July 2020, 18:00 PM
Dystopian Literature: In Conversation with Critical Discourse and Contemporary World
The twentieth century’s interactions with the popular revolutions, capitalist advent, authoritarianism, World Wars, repressive state-system paves the way for a frowning skepticism about the Enlightenment metanarrative and nuances the global literary firmament with dystopian motif.
3 July 2020, 18:00 PM
Long books to lose oneself in during lockdown: Margaret Forster’s Daphne du Maurier
On offer is a remarkably candid biography of Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989), the powerful story-teller of the twentieth century; highlighted by her singly recognised classic novel, Rebecca (1938). At the time,
26 June 2020, 18:00 PM
A Pandemic Novel for Now and Forever: José Saramago’s Blindness
Looking for exceptional reading a month after the coronavirus pandemic set in, I took up the Portuguese writer José Saramago’s 1995 novel Blindness, reckoning that a Nobel Prize winner’s work would be well worth spending time on in these quarantine days.
26 June 2020, 18:00 PM
Barricaded Dream, Detained Sun
Now that we are fortunate enough
to be left behind,
19 June 2020, 18:00 PM
Like a Blink of an Eye
One year goes by in the blink of an eye
But the memories remain as livid as ever.
19 June 2020, 18:00 PM
Poetics of Pandemic
Any pandemic is crushing. COVID-19 is no exception. It strains cognition and emotion. It tanks economies. It disrupts communication. It alters psychology. It breeds panic and paranoia.
19 June 2020, 18:00 PM
You Don’t Even Know Earth
Look! Look outside
Behold the state of the world
12 June 2020, 18:00 PM
Symbols
Symbols divide us; symbols unite us.
12 June 2020, 18:00 PM
In memoriam: the Harlem Renaissance
Amid laughter, jokes and cheers, I hear Mr. Jefferson’s intellectual sneer. In “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” you bet! I put my money in the safety of my pocket.
12 June 2020, 18:00 PM
Forest Teaching
[for Samuel on his 15th birthday]
5 June 2020, 18:00 PM
Maruful Islam’s Anisuzzaman
I can never use the past tense verbs in your case
5 June 2020, 18:00 PM
Our Anis Sir: A Tribute
In the space of just a few months, Bangladesh has become a land of vanishing greatness.
5 June 2020, 18:00 PM
From Kazi Nazrul Islam’s The Autobiography of a Vagabond
Dear friend, are you sure you want to listen to this? I am a person with a harsh exterior and a soft heart. When you insist that I have to tell you my story, I feel very emotional and stressed out.
29 May 2020, 18:00 PM
Nazrul’s Nonfiction Prose and the Question of Human Emancipation
Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899-1976)—one of the greatest Bengali poets—has by now been fully assimilated into the literary canon and even into public discourse in Bangladesh.
29 May 2020, 18:00 PM
Story of a Rajpath
It is I, a “rajpath” as they say. I had to suffer the same fate as Ahalya who was cursed into becoming the unfeeling being that she was.
22 May 2020, 18:00 PM
The Other Side of the Divide: A Journey into the Heart of Pakistan
The Other Side of the Divide by Sameer Arshad Khatlani journeys through the precarious landscape of people who live on both sides of the divide — the divide caused by the line drawn by Radcliffe in 1947 to split the subcontinent into Pakistan and India. The angst, the wounds linger on through even pandemics like COVID 19.
22 May 2020, 18:00 PM
Rabindranath Tagore and Jatragan
Rabindranath Tagore’s (1861-1941) childhood and adolescent memories of stage performance involve both Jatra and theatre.
15 May 2020, 18:00 PM
The Poet of Hope and Faith
Let me begin my speech in this birthday webinar organized by the High Commission of India in Dhaka to commemorate Rabindranath Tagore’s 159th birthday by referring to his last public address, Sabhyater Sankat or Crisis in Civilization.
15 May 2020, 18:00 PM