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
December 31, 2020
“What I read in 2020”: Writers Select
We asked some of the prominent writers and academics from Bangladesh about the books they most enjoyed in 2020. Some of them confessed that the year has been too difficult to find much time for reading.
December 24, 2020
Repulsive, But For A Reason
The mind of ten-year-old Jas—the narrator of Marieke Lucas Rijneveld’s 2020 International Booker Prize-winning The Discomfort of Evening (Faber Books,
December 10, 2020
An Ethiopian Story of War
The first Italo-Ethiopian War broke out in 1895, as Italian soldiers marched from Italian Eritrea towards Ethiopia. The Battle of Adwa witnessed Ethiopia’s decisive victory in warding off Italian invaders from its soil.
November 20, 2020
‘Shuggie Bain’ wins the 2020 Booker prize
Shuggie Bain (Grove Press, 2020) is the story of a young boy living in “working-class” Glasgow in the 1980s.
October 22, 2020
On Zadie Smith’s Bangladeshi characters
I am not a Bangladeshi immigrant living in a Bangladeshi neighbourhood somewhere in Kilburn, London like Samad Iqbal and his family from White Teeth (Hamish Hamilton, 2000).
September 17, 2020
Where to find Booker Prize-shortlisted titles in Dhaka
“It’s interesting to realise there are so many female authors out there; there are so many interesting non-white authors out there, giving us different glimpses of the world,” said Emily Wilson, graduate chair of comparative literature and theory at University of Pennsylvania, at the Booker Prize shortlist announcement ceremony on Monday.
September 12, 2020
Kabarsthan
As the mangy fingers of fascism grew out of the copper earth,
August 20, 2020
Humanity, freedom, and magic realism in the face of authoritarian powers in Iran
The novel is told from the perspective of a 13-year-old girl. Bahar died in a fire after her family home—a secular and intellectual space—in Tehran is stormed by fanatics.
August 13, 2020
The fires of Partition in East Bengal
Three years before Maloy Krishna Dhar’s death, his memoir, Train to India: Memories of Another Bengal (Penguin India, 2009), came out. Born in a sleepy village of Kamalpur in the Bhairab-Mymensingh region next to Meghna and Brahmaputra, Dhar had an illustrious career as a teacher, journalist, intelligence officer, and writer.
July 30, 2020
Season of the Black Leopard
Black. Glossy in the moonlight. Its white whiskers asserting an implicit, involuntary dominance. Its supple body effortlessly sliding up and down the teak trees that are abundant here. A shadow – a dark emissary of the night – drifting among the plant kingdom like a fugitive.
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