• Of Love and Faith

    DS Books is excited to launch this new series comprising reviews of “light reads” which explore heavier, sensitive topics. In this first instalment, we look at a young adult romance novel that depicts the challenging experiences of adolescent Muslims.

  • Revisiting ‘Talaash’ with Shaheen Akhtar and Seung Hee Jeon

    On November 1, 2020, author Shaheen Akhtar was awarded the 3rd Asian Literary Award for the Korean translation of her 2004 novel Talaash—which traces the lives of Birangona women decades after the 1971 Liberation War.

  • How To Build A World For Persons With Disability

    Sarah Hendren’s What Can a Body Do? How We Meet the Built World (Riverhead Books, 2020) is a collection of case stories in which she helps one understand the lives of those living with disabilities, and how able-bodied perceptions on assistive technology and prosthetics can fail in practice.

  • On stories of domestic violence

    Tahmima Anam’s play Shahrazad, written for UK-based arts organisation Komola Collective and live streamed on October 29, 2020, adopts the

  • Wreetu’s Comic Book on Menstrual Health

    In 2016, while already involved in conducting school-wide workshops on the topic, Sharmin Kabir began to think of ways in which adolescents could be taught about menstrual health in a friendly manner. “What would the children be left with once the workshop was over and Sharmin and her team had left?” she wondered.

  • In Search of A Suitable Adaptation

    I’ve long come to accept that there’s no such thing as a suitable adaption of a favourite book. Yet, when it was announced that Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy (1993), a novel I have loved through the decades, was going to be adapted by the BBC for a miniseries—and directed by Mira Nair, no less—I couldn’t help but feel hopeful about the possibilities. Could this really be… the one?

  • When Empires Collide: China vs America

    “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made the war inevitable,” Thucydides wrote in The History of the Peloponnesian War.

  • Shaheen Akhtar wins Asian Literary Award 2020

    Bangladeshi author Shaheen Akhtar has been awarded the 3rd Asian Literary Award for her novel Talaash (Mowla Brothers, 2009), which depicts the lasting suffering of Birangona women—survivors of sexual violence during the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war.

  • Last Night We Went to Manderley Again

    An adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca seemed especially well-timed, with its theme of imprisonment at home, as well as the timeless pull of social expectations on one’s identity.

  • The therapy of horror during a pandemic

    Literature can help. It strengthens your mind, gives it a break from reality, helps you see things from a different perspective. It can take you to another time and place.