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.
A recent video circulating on Facebook, created for February 21, starts with a living room scene in a well-off household. A young girl of about eight or nine years – a house maid with bedraggled hair and a tired face – walks past her employer's daughter who is roughly as old as her.
We have been striving to evolve as a progressive society – one that frowns upon discrimination and stands up for victims of injustice, regardless of their gender or background. In truly embracing such ideologies, we must learn to perceive mental issues as illnesses – no more shameful than an ailing lung or liver – and combat them with the correct treatment and, above all, sensitivity.
A group of teenagers spray-painted a historically black school with racist and anti-Semitic messages recently in Virginia. The judge, as reported by the Huffington Post on February 7, 2017, served the young men an unusual punishment: writing reports on a list of books and movies, besides also visiting a Holocaust museum and doing research on the swastika.
The frighteningly regular reports of dowry-related violence, often resulting in the death of women, demonstrates how persistent and overpowering the culture of dowry is in this country. The amended Dowry Prohibition Act 2017 approved by the Cabinet on January 30, 2017 is a noteworthy step in reiterating the illegality of this practice. But in order to wipe it out effectively we must truly delve into the dynamics that still keep the dowry custom alive.
Travel stories have become a failsafe story-writing hack in recent times – the second cheesiest plot structure next to the main character suffering from cancer.
15-year-old Adnan Kabir's death at the hands of teenage gangs has come as a shock to many adults, especially parents who had no inkling of the existence of such gangs.
It is that special time of the year. As winter mists descend over the glitter and chime of festivities, there is also the nostalgia of yet
Disney movies have been a large part of most childhoods, irrespective of location or culture. It's amazing how, aside from all the magic, their stories have also managed to reflect and adapt to evolving world sentiments.
It is remarkable that despite constantly being held back by a patriarchal society, women in this country have been able to stride forward and reach remarkable heights.
The NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children), UK defines child abuse as any action that
