Reviews
BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / Sports journalism and Bangladesh
Textbooks in Bangladesh tend to be written by foreign authors. Those that are written by Bangladeshi authors, emphasise on examples in a non-Bangladesh context.
'Independence': A painfully poignant Partition story
Divakaruni has a message to send with this novel. To her, independence entails not just liberation or freedom from subjugation, it also means doing the right thing for oneself and for the people around us.
Professing criticism: On Naeem Mohaiemen's new book of essays
Although the book is written in English, he has plenty of doubt to dispense about the language, its usefulness, acceptance, and communicability when it comes to writing and creating art in Bangladesh.
Flesh in ruins
It is the disease that maintains the upper hand in the plot. A jarring voice of its own, the toxins spilling across the pages in bold, chaotic words.
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / Family of feelings: Iffat Nawaz's 'Shurjo's Clan'
Part memoir, part magical realism, this is a story about identity and the idea of home.
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / The Bhawal story through women’s voices in Aruna Chakravarti’s ‘The Mendicant Prince’
The story of the ailing Bhawal prince, Ramendranarayan Roy, the Mejo Kumar, who while taken to Darjeeling to recuperate, died and was cremated there, under mysterious circumstances, and who then returned years later as a wandering ascetic with partial amnesia!
BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / Andy Warhol & Truman Capote talk out their anxieties
Andy Warhol suggested they tape their conversations on his Sony Walkman, to which Truman Capote agrees.
BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: A relative’s perspective on an enigmatic hero
Nehru was revolted by Nazism and the persecution of Europe’s Jews. Bose…felt that the Indian struggle for freedom should override all other considerations.
A brief encounter with awakening: Revisiting Anuk Arudpragasam’s ‘The Story of a Brief Marriage’
The Story of A Brief Marriage (2016) focuses on portraying the intricacies of alienation and uncertainty through the story of Dinesh, who has survived the Sri Lankan civil war.
How can we tackle climate change and food shortage in Asia?
Climate change and food security issues are multifaceted and transcend national boundaries.
Fyodor Dostoevsky's "The Christmas Tree and the Wedding": The uglier side of holiday parties
Two years ago, I read Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “The Christmas Tree and the Wedding”(1848), and even though I don’t celebrate Christmas in the traditional sense,
Untold stories of war heroines: Revisiting Rizia Rahman’s ‘Rokter Okshor’
Published as early as 1978, Rizia Rahman’s well-acclaimed book, Rokter Okshor, narrates the lives of the women who were forced (directly and indirectly) into prostitution in the post-Liberation War era of Bangladesh.
Lucy Foley’s ‘The Guest List’: Murder and intrigue at a secret celebrity wedding
The Guest List is a classic who-dun-it murder mystery, reminiscent of Dame Agatha Christie’s stories. Lucy Foley’s second novel takes us to a lavish celebrity wedding on a remote island off-coast of Ireland.
A TERRESTRIAL OMNIBUS: When the Mango Tree Blossomed
When the Mango Tree Blossomed is a voluminous compilation of, as the book’s subtitle proclaims, fifty short stories from Bangladesh, edited by Niaz Zaman.
On a Long-Awaited Critical Anthology of Bangladeshi Literature in English
For anyone with academic or amateurish interest in Bangladeshi writings in English this must be a long-awaited book. The publication of Mohammad A Quayum and Md. Mahmudul Hasan–edited Bangladeshi Literature in English: A Critical Anthology (July 2021), possibly the first-ever of its kind, thus came as a welcome piece of news, and I congratulate the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh on publishing it in the midst of the ongoing pandemic, this three-hundred-page useful collection with befitting hardcover and flawless compose.
Pandemic Musings Anthropocene: climate change, contagion, consolation
Sudeep Sen’s Anthropocene is the third work on the subject by an Indian writer that I have come across in recent years, but it is truly sui generis.
Brandon Taylor’s ‘Real Life’—It’s seldom fair.
Brandon Taylor’s Real Life (Riverhead Books, 2020) begins with the protagonist, Wallace, contemplating his father’s death and feeling lonely amongst his friends because they do not understand the experiences he has had. The novel’s exploration of “real life” over the course of a weekend is also one that unpacks identity, race, sexuality, and the sheer boredom and frustration of postgraduate life.
Elif Shafak's 'Black Milk': Can a writer be a mother too?
Black Milk is an autobiographical documentation of Shafak's hesitation, anxiety, perplexity, and self-discovery as she is about to enter the phase of motherhood.