Beginning to read Fine Gråbøl’s What Kingdom, translated from the Danish by Martin Aitkin, is like sitting in a silent room, alone, and a voice begins to speak as though from beside you.
The walls of Dhaka city represent the volume and chaos of thousands of people jostling for ever-shrinking space.
It's true, I feel differently about books that I previously disliked or enjoyed reading and books that I want as a physical presence in my life
It’s hard not to recall our many conversations about literature as I try to summarise Shah Tazrian Ashrafi’s debut collection of short stories. They were always short discussions, opening and closing off in spurts, as happens over text. Exclamations over a new essay collection by Zadie Smith, or a new novel by Isabel Allende.
In the foreword, I wanted to capture how I, as a child, grew up listening to different stories: ghost stories, mythical stories from both Sanatana and Islamic religious scriptures, and fairy tales from 'Thakurmar Jhuli', compiled by Dakkhinaranjan Mitra Majumdar. It was a time when there were no boundaries for my imagination.
Like many veterans, I joined a creative writing MFA program because I wanted to evolve as a writer.
Here was a woman who was but a dot amidst the throngs of people who watched the Bosphorus Bridge being opened in October 1973, as fireworks erupted over a Turkey that now seamed Asia to Europe.
I always tell the authors to make subjective, qualitative decisions. So many of my authors say no to higher offers from publishing houses if they don’t feel comfortable with the publisher or editor.
“No, not even water,” I explain to my friend, whose eyes grow wide at my description of fasting during Ramadan. We’re walking down Boulevard Raspail on the sixth arrondissement of Paris, past rows of people sitting out on café tables, past a noodle shop, a Pizzeria, a sandwicherie, and a Lebanese restaurant. It’s a hot summer afternoon. The air smells of cheese and caffeine, and I still have eight hours to go before I can eat or drink anything.
To call it ‘climate fiction’ would barely scratch the surface of what it really is. Richard Powers’ The Overstory—winner of this year’s
As far as grand finales go, Avengers: Endgame—the curtain call on this batch of the Marvel cinematic saga—gets a lot of things right.
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.”
The book opens to a dark, ominous scene. An armed man in a soldier's uniform chases a woman through an open field, her saree unfoiling, smoke billowing from hedges and houses in the horizon.
If you’re thinking about the title of this article, let me clarify: I’ve always believed the opposite.
Think of some of the words we use most often in our daily lives in Bengali. The word for 'pen'—kolom; the word for 'sky'—asmaan; 'river'—doria; 'land'—jomeen.
In a solo exhibition “Disappearing Roots”, Samsul Alam Helal explores the impact of gentrification in the Rangamati hill tracts.
During the 1971 Liberation War, Khurshid Jahan, a 21-year-old student of Bagerhat PC College, Khulna, started training as a freedom fighter under the guidance of Lieutenant Zia Uddin.
It all starts with contact with light. The process, as we know, requires light to seep into the lens in which the moment captured already exists.
