Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s (1880-1932) ancestors came from Tabriz in Iran to settle down in this region. During her lifetime, Bangladesh as an independent country did not exist. We call her a Bangladeshi writer because she was born in Pairaband, Rangpur, in what is now Bangladesh. However, the site of her activism was Calcutta.

The banks along the river Shitalakshya flooded on a regular basis. During the rainy season, most villages around the area turned into islands.

I took my leave from the Siraj family, thanking them for their hospitality. I was just a stranger and yet they let me stay with them for weeks.

The antepenultimate chapter of Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay’s novel Chandrashekhar (1875) is titled “Jogabal Na Psychic Force?” (Yogic Power or Psychic Force?).

My body carved from abandoned bricks of a ruined temple,

said wounds heal with time.

Pink cherry blossoms, 

 I came across Heldris de Cornuälle’s Silence in 2011, a hundred years after its discovery in 1911. Dated to the early

A Sonata has three major parts: exposition, development and recapitulation.

In the slanting columns   of  the morning sun      on September›s grass, none came for me

I’ve seen many hues of yellow. Colorful, gray, unadorned. The pristine bokul podium, the vibrant spring awash with the fragrance of yellowy brilliance, the mournful memory of my adolescent day—the wedding ceremony of “Aaj Amenar Gaye Holud,”

Memoirs make for an intellectually absorbing reading. They belong to a different genre of literary creativity distinct from the tenor of “autobiography.”

Sharing my night In this mild low light, With ice and fire, Puzzled by the riddle of the gyre, Hiding behind you By turning into your shadow,  Hiding from what or whom I really don’t know. 

I roll and roll and roll, Till I reach my desired goal. The branches grow forth, Till my body aches and is sore. My body turns old.

As my siblings and I grew up in the first half of the 1960s, the radio set was the most sought-after device in our house. Till Baba bought a television set for us towards the end of the decade, it was our main source of entertainment, news and small talk.

On that October dawn The dew that descended

While students of literature are most often advised not to ponder over the personal lives of authors, it is almost impossible to do that in the case of Sylvia Plath.

The SAARC Literary Festival dates back to 1987, a year after the formation of SAARC. Ajeet Caur, a writer and recipient of the Padma Shri Award, first organized the festival on behalf of the Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature (FOSWAL).

Zahid sat in a tiny room cramped with men. A ventilator was the only source for its occupants to get air from the outer world. The last time he had talked to his father had been at the Istanbul Airport. He still had his cellphone from Bangladesh. It was the only physical connection he had with his country.

Nobody tells me to search for you as if there’s a timeframe for undertaking such quests! My voice sounds like yours, and often, looking at my arms, I get puzzled,