• A new book explores the mediascape of Bangladesh

    We barely see cross-disciplinary initiatives that try to understand our media, culture, society and politics. In this wake, Dr Ratan Kumar Roy’s Television in Bangladesh: News and Audiences (Routledge, 2021) offers a rich ethnography of television news practices in Bangladesh, with a foreword by Marcus Banks, Professor of Visual Anthropology at Oxford University.

  • The unfortunate Asians of Uganda

    In the 1890s, many South Asians were brought to Uganda by the British Empire for administration and development purposes.

  • War of attrition

    When searching for literature covering the role of the Mukti Bahini in the victory of 1971, a noticeable dearth of objective analyses is apparent.

  • The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire

    Here is a door stopper for the lingering period of hibernation. All 522 pages provide ample literary support for long-term homebound inmates.

  • Is science fiction really not a woman’s genre?

    Last week, I decided to pen a tribute to my favourite authors of science fiction, a love letter, really, that has long been in the pipeline.

  • Five novels with strong women protagonists

    Hellfire is at once a book about patriarchy and the toxic strand of matriarchy that supports it. Through the lives of sisters Lovely and Beauty, both kept from socialisation and even attending school deep into middle age, the novel captures near perfectly the convoluted blueprint of life for South Asian women.

  • The case of the missing girl: Where are we in Bangla children’s literature?

    It wasn’t until my 20s that I realised I had read less than 10 Bengali women authors in my childhood and adolescence.

  • Once More Into the Past: Essays, Personal, Public, and Literary

    “How does Tagore intoxicate a growing young man . . . .? How has Dhaka transitioned through the Partition of Bengal and the birth of the University of Dhaka? . . . . how does one remember-- with nuance, with style-- icons of history and culture . . . .?”

  • What does it take to build a business empire?

    Binod K Chaudhary, the chairman of the CG Corp Global conglomerate group, is Nepal’s first billionaire and possibly the most successful industrialist in his nation.

  • Conservation through literature

    The River Tales (2021) is a series of graphic novels for children, commissioned by Asia Foundation’s ‘Let’s Read Asia’ digital library project and produced by HerStory Foundation in an effort to raise awareness about Bangladesh’s heritage and culture. Sarah Anjum Bari, editor of Star Books, speaks to Katerina Don, curator at HerStory Foundation, writer Anita Amreen, and artist Sayeef Mahmud about their processes of research, writing, and graphic designing for the series.