Into the world of speculative fiction: An Interview with 'Small World City'
This past August, Dhaka’s speculative fiction magazine 'Small World City' enjoyed their first anniversary. The magazine, over this last year, has published some of the more striking works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry coming out of the country
2m ago
A case for funding the Bangladeshi English-writing scene
If the country’s literary potential is not given generous support, we may never create favourable conditions for aspiring writers to devote time and energy to the art
8m ago
A country coming to life
Weaving the grand themes of politics and history, the book is a revelation into how the ordinary lives within a country are buffeted by constant changes.
8m ago
Explosive speculative fiction in the latest issue of ‘Small World City’
What struck me the most about these stories is the firm, unflinching, and confident authorial voice sneaking up on and dictating the reader’s thoughts, orienting them to feel sympathy for the characters no matter how unlikeable they are.
11m ago
4 fully funded Creative Writing MFA programs in the US worth exploring
While Canada, and now some programs in the UK, have also started offering the degree, it is in the United States that it is most common and rigorous.
1y ago
6 UK small presses that consider unsolicited submissions
This means you can submit a manuscript on your own, without a literary agent.
1y ago
A fellowship of humanity and the wild
Martell’s narrative journalism is a lesson for those in the field as to how a writer can instil empathy for the others around. The reader can taste affection for both the animals and humans in his storytelling.
1y ago
Local publishers, sales, and the 2023 Dhaka Lit Fest
This year a ticketing system was imposed. As such, sales were lower than expected.
1y ago
September 1, 2022
Bleak realities in the shadow of China’s rise
In May 2022, Joanna Chiu won the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for her debut nonfiction book, China Unbound: A New World Disorder (Hurst, November 2021).
August 4, 2022
Short Story Review: In “Lucky”, innocent lives encounter destructive politics
For me, the key takeaway from “Lucky” would be the perspective one can gain into living in the shadow of war, which creates around its victims a prison of undying misery.
March 17, 2022
SHORT STORY OF THE MONTH: The lingering shadows of grief in ‘The Faraway Things’
Lesedi is not “right in the head”. He avoids talking and discards words that do not make sense to him like garbage.
February 3, 2022
Sahar Mustafah's 'The Beauty of Your Face': In which Muslims are not “radicals”
Too often, the representation of Muslims in arts and culture has been tainted by the shadow of “extremism”.
November 4, 2021
An island of one’s own
When one begins reading Karen Jennings’ An Island (Picador India, 2021), one might find it hard to believe that an atmospheric novel with such fluid prose initially struggled to find a publisher.
September 2, 2021
Radhika Singha's 'The Coolie's Great War': The forgotten ones of World War I
As of December 31, 1919, a total of 1.4 million Indians were recruited to various theatres of the First World War. Among them, approximately 563,369 were “followers or non-combatants”.
August 31, 2021
In ‘Toward Happy Civilization’, a portrait of desperation
Typical of any Samanta Schweblin story from her International Booker-longlisted collection, Mouthful of Birds (OneWorld, 2019), a sense of anxiety is strongly perceptible here, especially through the characters Fi and Pe. One grows afraid of them as they start showing both lovingly caring and Big Brother-like tendencies. What heightens the ominous halo surrounding these two is the hostages’ inability to translate their emotions; why would someone who provides for you not give you a way out?
June 3, 2021
The terror of living and loving
An 81-year-old woman is strolling about in her farm, reeling from nostalgia, dead leaves crunching under her feet. She is planting newly bloomed flowers in an empty pig pen.
May 27, 2021
'Murder at the Mushaira': A poet, a murder mystery, and a vivid portrait of 1857 India
In 1857, a wave of uprisings sparked through India in a bid to overthrow the British rulers. The Sepoy Mutiny was the first time Indian soldiers rose against the British East India Company in the face of corruption and unjust social reforms—including ruthless land taxes that unfairly penalised the working class.
April 24, 2021
Mentorship opportunity for South Asian writers from Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan
A new British Council-funded project, Write Beyond Borders, is set to kickstart its inaugural episode from May-October 2021. The program is designed for “emerging writers” of South Asian background, who can be based anywhere in the UK, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. The deadline for application, which should include a covering letter and a writing sample of no more than 2,000 words, is April 30, 2021.
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