Books

Books

FICTION / The loss of essentiality

Umar stood in line with all the patience in the world. He could smell the anxiety and fear in the air. The room was filled with people once glorifying death and taking pride in solitude, now filled with panic in the face of reality.

3d ago

POETRY / There’s no way you’ll outrun a bear

Smoother violence fills our hearts like charming splinters. The irony is I am the first of my women

3d ago

POETRY / Be a tree

Be a tree Get wet in sorrow’s shower and you’ll recover. From envy’s scorching sun gather strength

3d ago

New Garcia Marquez novel launched 10 years after his death

Gabriel Garcia Marquez died a decade ago, but a previously unpublished book by the author who popularised the Latin American "magical realism" narrative genre will hit the stores on Wednesday, somewhat despite his wishes

1w ago

ESSAY / The promises and pitfalls of decolonial thinking

The craze that once prevailed in academia over postcolonialism no longer seems to hover around there anymore.

2w ago

THE SHELF / 5 mystery thriller books to look out for at and after Boi Mela

Sanjana has killed her husband. She had not meant to kill him, but the odds never seem to be in her favour. Desperately trying to grasp the reality of her situation, she flees the crime scene, leaving her family, friends and life behind.

2w ago

BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / The enchanting realism in Shahaduz Zaman’s ‘The Mynah Bird’s Testimony’

Shahaduz Zaman is a familiar face in Bangladeshi literature, whose literary career spans decades of fruitful work. He regularly writes columns for Bangla newspapers, has written a few notable biographical fiction, such as Ekjon Komolalebu (Prothoma, 2017), based around the life of Jibanananda Das, and has garnered some duly needed appreciation for ethnographic work on the history of medicine during the liberation war.

BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / A twisted tale of deception

Reading this book was uncomfortable, like a car crash waiting to happen, it was hard to read and even harder to put down.

The stories that nonfictions tell

Dense textbooks with words more twisted than the shapes my lips could contort themselves into—for the longest time, my perception of non-fiction didn’t deviate from this singular image.

Tucked between moving trains and elegiac dead-ends

Some among us might have wondered what it feels like to hold a lit bomb between our palms. One that will go off inevitably yet its spark, heat, force, weight, and pulsating nature are so fascinating that we are unable to put it down or look away, all the while knowing at the end of the wick we too will be destroyed—a chosen death, a voluntary annihilation.

Rehman Sobhan’s recollections of the road he took towards December 16, 1971

The title of the first of Professor Rehman Sobhan’s two-part memoir suggests that it is about his “years of fulfilment”; the subject matter of its sequel therefore would be about the “untranquil” years that followed.

Aimless in Morisaki bookshop

My introduction to the Bangla translation of Japanese books happened during my visit to Baatighar Chittagong. It was there that I encountered the Bangla translations of works by one of my favourite Japanese writers, Haruki Murakami, back in 2021. Then last year, I found myself enchanted with the promise of Morisaki Boighorer Dinguli (Abosar Prokashona, 2023); the allure of the black edition of the book boasting ebony pages and stunning artwork had me yearning for the book months before its scheduled release.

Sad girl lit and trivialising women’s writing

When I read the title of Charlotte Stroud’s article “The curse of the cool girl novelist” and the accompanying description of said type of novelist, I had a solid image of what she was referring to. Stroud describes “cool girl novelists” as “depressed and alienated”, “incurably downcast”, and “terminally sad”. It had similarities with “sad girl” literature, a supposedly new genre captivating readers and publishers alike.

Jhumpa Lahiri’s Italian renovations

Jhumpa Lahiri has always been the rare author whose prowess in the art of the short-story far surpassed her novelistic talents.

THE OTHER WAY ROUND

What makes You a boy, me a girl; Me a popper, you an Earl?

Soldier amidst the blood moon: An elegy

Crimson blood splattered amongst the ravaged lands

Ludic space for Tagore’s fictive children

An interesting concern in contemporary children’s literature criticism is the discussion of power. Do the fictive children in children’s books, conceived and delivered by the adult author, have the ability to exercise their will and possess a voice?

Love, loss, and hope in Tehran

Overnight, the saffron summer afternoons and evenings of dreamy stargazing tumble into a tale of grief, guilt, and pain.

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