Bot Book Reviews
BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / An intellectual debt worth remembering
The history of Bangladesh’s conception is incomplete without recognising the multitudes of sacrifices and labour that academics and intellectuals had poured into their aspirations for Bangladesh, often at the cost of their own safety and livelihood.
BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / Regional cooperation and the challenges Bangladesh faces
Bangladesh is currently going through turbulent times as it tries to find its way out from dictatorial political rule towards an uncertain future. During the past decade, Bangladesh did achieve significant economic progress, but it came with increased economic inequality, unparalleled corruption, and loss of personal freedom.
BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / Taking folk melodies of Bangladesh to the world
Folk Melody of Bangladesh: An Anthology of Bangladesh Folk Music in Standard Notation is a music anthology that compiles 204 carefully chosen folk songs of Bangladesh that date from the 16th century.
BOOK REVIEW: GRAPHIC NOVEL / Down the rabbit hole of science and art
The city of Prague, now the capital of the Czech Republic, was once the breeding hotspot of the 20th century’s greatest writers, scientists, scholars, and activists.
THE SHELF / Post-July remembrance
With the departure of an autocrat and the period of semi-expected-still-frightening chaos after, comes the period when we have to sit down to think of what comes ahead, know what we must not do, and get some direction on how we are supposed to go on. In light of this, the following articles and/or chapters have been curated for perspectives that might be needed in this unprecedented situation we’ve found ourselves in.
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / Sad men behaving badly
In January 2023, I was sitting in the crowd, listening in on a panel at the 10th and possibly the final edition of the Dhaka Lit Fest. Sheikh Hasina had already been in power for almost 15 years, and it felt like the sun would never set on Awami League, at least not in my lifetime.
THE SHELF / 5 books posed as literary cannibalism
Literary cannibalism refers to the retellings of Western classics written by colonised or formerly colonised countries. These authors aim to decolonise the mindset of the readers of the popular literary classics. Decolonisation is a violent process, and by comparing this genre with cannibalism it demonstrates the brutality of it.
Remembering the Birangona: The power of personal narratives
The books we recall today, Ami Birangona Bolchi (1994), Rising from the Ashes (2001), and The Spectral Wound (2015), are among the documentations which highlight women’s voices and their perspectives of 1971.
For lovers of traveling and history
Shamsul Alam’s From Love Lane to the World: Tales of Travel & More (Sea Sands, 2021) is a selection of his magazine and newspaper articles, based on his many travels over the years.
Of the peasants’ quest for a state and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
Afsan Chowdhury’s Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Bangladesh: The Quest for a State (1937-71), published in 2020 by Shrabon Prokashani, studies Bangabandhu in the context of the peasants’ resistance against colonialism and their quest for a state in South Asia.
A handbook for navigating the social media age in your profession
While the world might seem like a place only made for extroverts, who get ahead with the volume of their voices alone, Personal Branding (Odommo Prokash, 2021) is a book that is here to permanently lay that idea to rest. Authors Md Tajdin Hassan, Md Sohan Haidear, and Rafeed Elahi Chowdhury provide a meticulous blueprint for an aspiring professional to make themselves noticed.
Tahmima Anam launches and discusses ‘The Startup Wife’ at Hay Festival
On June 3, 2021, Bangladeshi-born British writer Tahmima Anam published her fifth book, The Startup Wife (Canongate, 2021), a novel about coding, entrepreneurship, human relationships, and finding one’s voice.
Soumitra Chatterjee: The one man behind the many
It is impossible to ascribe any one particular character to Soumitra Chaterjee, as he has immortalised several through his performances.
Relationships lost and found in debut novel ‘Punyaha’.
In the middle of nowhere, among the wide expanse of paddy fields stands a wee nursery—an oasis of sorts, a respite from the outside world.
Declan Walsh's 'The Nine Lives of Pakistan': A journalist explains the country that banished him
In the middle of an Islamabad night, just before the Pakistan election of 2013, the Irish journalist Declan Walsh was visited by “angels”.
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.
Today we are 1
It was during the peak of the coronavirus crisis, amidst the punishing heat of June, that we geared up to launch Daily Star Books on this very day in 2020.