'The Hippo Girl and Other Stories' holds up a mirror to a society that judges and ridicules those that do not adhere to its shortsighted vision of a homogenised culture.

Callahan’s novel came to her during the pandemic when she found herself waking up with a large ringing noise in her head.

“My reader, I dip into the water just for you.” Bibhas Roy Chowdhury

“An exceptional novel that makes gender disappear to build unconventional love and friendship”

In Alex Christofi’s newly published fascinating book—Cypria: A Journey to the Heart of the Mediterranean—we get a deep close-range look at one of world civilisation’s interesting hotspots that has long swayed between the cross-currents of the rise and fall of the great monotheisms.

The literary world was shaken on August 12, 2022, when the news of Salman Rushdie being stabbed on stage in upstate New York started to pour in. Ironically, he was all set to talk about his involvement in a project to create a refuge in the USA for those writers who are not safe in their country.

Bengali literature has had a rich history of prose, beginning more or less in the early 19th century under the colonial Raj.

A review of Tessa Hulls' graphic memoir, 'Feeding Ghosts' (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024)

Review of ‘Bidrohi Puran’ (Pendulum Books, 2024) by Arif Rahman

The Three-Body Problem is the first book in the Remembrance of Earth’s Past (2006) trilogy by Cixin Liu, a renowned Chinese author.

I recently had the sublime experience of watching the recent adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune (Chilton Books, 1965), a 2021 and 2023 two-part movie series directed by the passionate Denis Villeneuve. It is, in my mind, a cinematic triumph, and I am thrilled to witness the surge interest these movies have driven for Herbert’s science fiction book series of the same name.

Anisul Hoque’s Kokhono Amar Maa-ke is the story of appalling sacrifices made by a mother and her unwavering determination to secure a bright future for her children.

Inevitably, Kaiser Haq’s The New Frontier and Other Odds and Ends in Verse and Prose is about the poet, his poetic predilections, and situatedness at this time of human existence. In many ways it is typical of the verse we have come to expect from our leading poet in English for a long time now, but in other ways it articulates his present-day concerns in new and striking poetic measures. 

Articles on Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s last novel to be published by his sons against the author’s wishes built up my anticipation and I couldn’t wait for April to arrive. Thanks to Bookworm, I got my copy the moment they had it in store and I read it twice. It didn’t impress me the first time as it was just a string of chapters describing how a promiscuous woman drove herself into the arms of different men on her annual August 16 visits to a Caribbean island.

The best part of this book is perhaps the fact that all the weird, bonkers cultish stuff just happens with no rhyme or reason to it.

The book discusses the lack of sensitivity among policymakers in acknowledging the distinct socio-cultural differences and linguistic and community identities of the refugees that often got merged. It explores how different categories of refugees received different treatments.

A review of ‘Roaming’ (Drawn and Quarterly, 2023) by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki

Review of the Bangla translation of ‘A Strange Library’ (Knopf, 2014) by Haruki Murakami

From the sensory delights of birdsong in the morning and sunset views from a lookout point to the less appealing realities of monitoring stagnant pond water and counting newts, we accompany Katie on her journey of discovery.

The Covenant of Water by physician and author Abraham Verghese tells the story of three generations of an Orthodox Saint Thomas Christian family in Kerala. Through suffering and loss, triumphs and victories, the importance of familial ties is examined and supported. In the Kerala of the 1940s, blood ties were sacred, but “family” also meant helpers who worked for you. Members of the three-generational family seem to be under a curse which causes its members to drown in water. The mystical power of water in our lives is explored with precision and sensitivity in the novel.