Ishrat Jahan

The Whole Kahani’s ‘Tongues and Bellies’: A promising literary confection

Tongues and Bellies, published by Linen Press (2021), is described by its blurb as an anthology where “sensual and surprising stories play a tantalising game of hide and seek with lies and truth”.

2y ago

The comfort of books amidst wedding lights

It is December again and as evenings set in, Dhaka becomes brighter than it has been in the past few months.

2y ago

Matthew Salesses demystifies the craft of writing

Storytelling is a space in which, as writers and readers, we experience the ways of how we know the world and interact with it.

3y ago

The universality of solitude and good books in Jhumpa Lahiri's 'Whereabouts'

Whereabouts (Penguin India, 2021) is Jhumpa Lahiri’s third novel, published originally as Dove mi trovo (2018) in Italian and translated to English by the author herself, as she did with her work of nonfiction, In Other Words (2015).

3y ago

Remembering the Birangona: The power of personal narratives

The books we recall today, Ami Birangona Bolchi (1994), Rising from the Ashes (2001), and The Spectral Wound (2015), are among the documentations which highlight women’s voices and their perspectives of 1971.

3y ago

Women and Bangladesh's publishing industry

The publishing and literary world in Bangladesh have considerable visibility of women: some are authoritative figures in the literary and academic world, some run their own establishments and bookshops; others occupy senior positions in many of the local publishing houses and literary committees. However, like the systems and society we currently operate in, this industry is also influenced by the larger patriarchal structure.

3y ago

Netflix’s ‘The White Tiger’: A Lukewarm Translation of Rage On-screen

One can’t help but be excited about Netflix’s recent attempts at bringing to life and screen valuable works of South Asian fiction. Today’s focus, The White Tiger, which premiered on Netflix on January 21, 2021, was a debut novel by the Indian-Australian writer and journalist Aravind Adiga, who won critical acclaim and the Man Booker Prize in 2008 for his critique of class and caste boundaries in India.

3y ago

Dissent through the Ages in the Indian Subcontinent

Eminent scholar and Emeritus Professor of History at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Romila Thapar, in her latest book, Voices of Dissent (Seagull Books, 2020), explores important perspectives on dissent located in the historical and contemporary context of the Indian subcontinent.

3y ago
July 2, 2020
July 2, 2020

Reading Sontag in the pandemic

At the time of writing this article, the number of coronavirus cases in Bangladesh crept towards 140,000. This crises has brought forth an old conundrum: we rarely think of diseases as a part of ourselves,

September 3, 2015
September 3, 2015

E02: REARRANGE ME

There are Things that come crawling in the night. In the darkest hours. They crawl under your skin and along your spine in the silence that follows the falling apart of worlds.

August 20, 2015
August 20, 2015

Animal Cruelty Laws Resurrected

Three youths were caught beating a dog in Rampura. The rescuers found the dog fighting for his life, and took him to a vet and later to the Obhoyaronno Clinic for treatment.

August 6, 2015
August 6, 2015

MEN'S RIGHTS

Men want rights and so they should. But why in the name of free drinks?

July 16, 2015
July 16, 2015

KolpoKoushol: A Knowledge Initiative

The World Bank's Knowledge Economic Index ranks innovation in Bangladesh at 191 and shows a long and winding road ahead for innovation and technology here.

July 2, 2015
July 2, 2015

Living with Loss

I still pick up the phone and dial your number, the one number I have dialed everyday for the last 2 months.

July 2, 2015
July 2, 2015

Fragile Things: Charming and creepy

Fragile Things is not a conventional short story collection. It is quite possibly an odd and approximate sketch of what the inside of Neil Gaiman's head looks like.

June 11, 2015
June 11, 2015

Dialogue and Discourse

The importance of debating in the development of thinkers and leaders has been stressed repeatedly.

June 4, 2015
June 4, 2015

Hell is a Circus

He knew where he was, just as he knew that the thing on the other end of darkness was a demon. His demon.

May 28, 2015
May 28, 2015

Dhaka MoocXchange: Online classrooms

In Bangladesh, where degrees are valued in terms of the best jobs they can bring, who would want a degree on the genesis of rock and roll?